What did you really think when you first heard?
the bombing in Oklahoma City brought to you live and in color

April 19, 1995, at 9:02 AM Central Daylight Time? Your
answer depends upon whom your bogeymen were that year

Bombed-out Bosnians? Followers of Egyptian Cleric Sheik Omar
Abdel-Rahman bent on expanding operations to the Midwest

after failing to fell the World Trade Center towers in ‘93?
Rwandans? or, closer to home,

a disgruntled employee? Who undertook
such killing on the second anniversary of Waco

the burning of men and women and children
the designated date no coincidence

to douse violence with violence
with incomprehensible violence

using fertilizer not to grow but to kill
using a pick-up truck not to farm but to kill

not a foreigner then
not a migrant worker gone daft in the sun

not a demented genius or lifetime victim of schoolyard
bullying but an ordinary guy with a smile on his face

a homegrown terrorist and son
raised in my back yard

Confess your relief that the ringleader was a white male army veteran
a product of rural America and a high school graduate

with a not-so-secret love of right wing militias
who found his purpose in life in a plot

to kill as many people as he could – children, too –
to mark an anniversary

Confess your anger at his army buddy friends
and others who knew at least in general

what he proposed to do
and who remained silent

Martha Deed, 2008