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66 London Letter after the Subway Bombing Take care, he says at the end, and then, Take care again, my former student letting me know that he is safe and far from harm. There at St. Mary’s Cathedral, along the walls of the nave and anterooms, the message boards filled with prayers for the ones underground, slips of colored paper pinned by the faithful, the parishioners, slim missives, petitions, though the people would not call them that, handwritten, many-languaged, one in Spanish from a man named Sebastian, one for Arlene to keep her leg, and one from an anonymous Australian asking only that his family be kept safe. Here today the phone books are being delivered on our street, the slow thunk, then thunk again, even before the sound of the car can be heard, like Conrad Aiken’s secret snow, as the man in the van tosses one in each driveway, each in a garish plastic yellow bag. I think how they would look from the air, little yellow presents, or burning Buddhists at the end of every driveway, their saffron robes blending neatly with the flames. I think of my neighbor, fifteen years ago, the former Nazi prison guard outed, Wiesenthaled, who up and left that night, fleeing to Canada to avoid extradition, taking only what he could, the brightly colored news vans, the action cams showing up in his driveway the next morning, all of us saying, He was a quiet man. He waved to the kids, and the yellowing newspapers, the mail piling up at his door for weeks, like waves from some righteous sea having found his shore and run out of breath, like those who held their papers out for him to see, Juden, Juden, their prayer slips, their yellow stars pinned to their clothing, the way we pin dollars to statues in parades of the saints, the way we come out of our houses sometimes, the way we have to come out, 67 until all of us come, a moving wave, a critical mass, a tipping point, each with a letter, a petition, an edict, a ribbon, a photograph, a folded flag, to stick to the emperor to wear as his clothing, his tar and his feathers, to prick him and sting him, prayer after prayer, God help us, protect us, please don’t take my leg, take care of my family, take care, take care, take care. ...

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