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Moscow on the Fifth of July

Face down in the street
on the corner of Mytnaya and Lesteva
lay the Russian businessman
felled by one shot
clean
hollow
reverberating
meant to be heard

His forward fall
unbroken
by hands
that got no signal

His body
now a crooked
strangely relaxed arrow
pointed east not west

What little he bled
was the purpled red
of a 5000 ruble note

On this corner
Not far from where Kaplan shot Lenin
The venders
who saw it all
did not close their kiosks
did not speak to the police
who stood around
in their ill-fitting flak jackets
aimless
or were they?

— Marcus Rediker
July 13, 1994
Moscow, Russia