A Friend in Sri Lanka Leaves Hotel 30 Minutes before Bomb Explodes

Michelle Tokarczyk

What kicked your jet-lagged, tired-ass body

out of your barely disturbed bed

in a tropical paradise 5-star hotel?

It was two days after Passover that you didn’t observe.

You came not for bitter herbs, but for cinnamon.

You came to research and write about a spice

that transformed trade and dinner tables.

It was Easter, and you woke early. Walking

you saw church-goers dressed for a miracle.

You were dressed to escape the humidity

and the sun’s strengthening rays.

Leaving early, you escaped the bomb that shook

the breakfast tables in your hotel. Bombs

exploding in other hotels and churches.

Killing 250. Reverberating world-wide.

Your doorway was unmarked. No swaths

of lamb’s blood stained your bags or clothes.

But the Angel of Death passed over you.

Or some angel spared you. Maybe

the same one that steadied the robber’s hand

as he held the gun at my head, took only my money.

Left me able to cry and report a crime. Call it

luck, or fate, or God’s will, we live.

Michelle M. Tokarczyk has published two books of poetry: The House I'm Running From (West End Press) and Bronx Migrations (Cherry Castle Publishing). Her poems have also appeared in numerous journals and anthologies; including the minnesota review, The Literary Review, Masque & Spectacle, Unearthed, Chelsea Community News, and For a Living: The Poetry of Work. Tokarczyk was born and raised in New York City in a working-class family. She earned a doctorate in English and for many years taught at Goucher College, commuting between Baltimore and New York City. Now retired, she lives and works full-time in New York. Her twitter handle is mmtokarczyk1. For more information on her work, see mmtokarczyk@wixsite.com/mysite.