When I was twelve I walked to junior high
across a wooden bridge;
it spanned the morning mist
and the still grey lake we lived on.
I would hurry to the other side,
where the commuter bus swished by,
my father in a window waving
every time.

Lord you make things so tender
we must love them.
Then you crush them.
The day the missiles rained
on the children of Minab at school,
little girls and boys at school,
it was the psychopaths who did it.
Admit it—
you speak through them
as through the saints, alike.

Fatima. Zeinab. Hamed. Liana.
Zahra. Athena. Parsa.
Arad. Saman. Mandana.
Hananeh. Reza.
Ali.
Maryam.
Amir.

I always waved—Mommy sees you—
to my daughter on the slide, the swing, good-bye,
I’ll see you soon.
I waved the first morning
of first grade as, a mile away,
the first plane ripped the first tower open,
disemboweled it like an animal.
I don’t remember much. Flames.
A man who faced a wall
to pray.

Now that she’s grown, it’s marathons.
Floods of confident young bodies
course through Brooklyn, Central Park.
How much older I’ve become.
I wave a homemade sign:
I love you. Run.