Boston

I wrote this poem on Tuesday (4/16) when it was a sticky 85 degrees in New Orleans.
I'm publishing it today (4/19) when it is a rainy 55.

I am cold.
Chilled from the week's events, my own inability to process tragedy, this ambivalent drizzle.

*

Most of my memories of my time in Boston
are of being cold.

My first visit
was August 1991
when a coup was taking over
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

I needed a sweater at night.

Later trips were to visit a boy I liked:
our first kiss was Spring Break, our senior year of high school
in a parking garage
a few blocks away from where bombs would explode in 2013

our last kiss was in February 1999
in his Harvard dorm room

Then Easter 2001
where I went to my first Red Sox game
in sleet
and drank whiskey I had just (legally) qualified to drink

I wore a dress I'd worn at Christmas 2000
to a church
that marathon runners pass

Mothers' Day 2008
I was there with another boy
his fraternity brothers
and a suede jacket

I have wandered Boston Common
in snow
and in bloom
but always in chill.

Boston, take it from Oklahoma City
or from New York City
or from New Orleans, my current home:

you will bloom again.

and we will keep you warm in our hearts and prayers.

tense

Of all the gin joints?
You came, you saw, you conquered.
But I love(d) you! But.