A week before Easter our Cyprus hotel

hosted the season’s last two conferences –

‘Moscow Niardmedic’, ‘Nestlé in Russia’.

The spacious, tiled, white walled lounge, the free bars,

the terraces with pergolas were filled

with Big Pharma salespersons on a jolly –

the many ethnicities of Russia,

all seemingly impassive, inscrutable,

seemingly suspicious of strangers.

April 3rd on the St Petersburg metro

a bomb was detonated between stations…

April 7th the US Sixth Fleet,

below the horizon due south from here,

launched its missiles against Syria…

That afternoon an Uzbek exile

drove a lorry at a crowd in Stockholm…

One evening, in the resident pianist’s break,

a Russian improvised – then played a slow,

soft melody all his compatriots knew.

They sang sotto voce, suffusing the space

with a wistful murmur.