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She who had most trouble saying anything
at all, expressionless in her blue blazer
and white silk shirt and sipping her glass of water
and looking away, eyes far from everything,
she who knew firsthand, what was it she was thinking?—
the others' earnest voices rang out eerily
somnambulant, equivocating over "enemy,"
tongues to a high gloss polishing
"freedom," "casualty," "most regrettably,"
"that's where the force comes in"—but what was it
she was thinking—remembering, maybe,
how during the bombardment she sat
hunched in her apartment, watching water
tremble, slosh, ripple, smooth over,
until the next shock wave through I-beams
rises, fish darting into her aquarium's
corners, ornamental blue crests wavering,
striped gills fluttering, fins twitching
to explosions rolling through what
she called, betraying no emotion, "rocket streets"?
National Portrait Gallery
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The Civil War
A 150th-anniversary commemorative issue, with Atlantic work by Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and others. Read more › |
The Wolf I Used to Be...
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Video Documentary: The Impact of a Principal
James Fallows on Obama's first term, Raymond Bonner on the death penalty, Christopher Hitchens on G.K. Chesterton, and more
Browse back issues of The Atlantic that have appeared on the Web. From September 1995 to the present, the archive is essentially complete, with the exception of a few articles, the online rights to which are held exclusively by the authors.
See All Back Issues: September 1995
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Fashion Week Is a Money-Maker, Not an Occupier
What Makes a Space Lovable?
What's Behind the Urban Chicken Backlash
Can You Figure Out the 'World’s Best City'?
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