Transliteration

I write the sounds Concord,
New Hampshire in the Cyrillic alphabet,
and it’s all at once no longer the city I’ve absently
scrawled on the dotted line marked
“Birthplace” for the last three decades.
No, the teeming market square smells of dill,
goats, diesel, and old lace. The swift river,
swollen with snowmelt, carries my grandfather’s
barn away. Churchbells and sirens vie
for what caution I have left, but the syllables
blu gluv seep through the din, and I cannot
place the language. What do you want from me?
How shall I spell this, with which characters?
Will I be struck sightless for committing
to the written word some secret
name of God?