Quietly

I'm never going to finish this thing, but what's the point? This is just therapy, not really writing. You can tell, reading it. But it is something old, raw, and new to share on this day.


Quietly

Ask me about the day
September 11
ask me about that day and I know
the first tower, the second tower
the call from a friend
turn on the tv
I’m busy
turn on the tv
ok, what? A plane, two planes
a tower, two towers
I see it
they are burning
I see it
the goddamned reception is bad
I see it
what?
I see it
they are both on fire

and for a moment I stopped
and felt my chest and felt my hand
as if it palsied and withered.

and a moment when I thought again about my business
an interviewee was waiting for me
and a meeting after that, maybe I would cancel now
the interviewee needed to talk to me, I had kept
him waiting

and the tv voices were barely audible over snow
watching in a conference room
on the seventh floor.

and the tv barely had a picture.

The towers vomited smoke
like engines at full bore.
And this felt like war.


another phone call
my partner, where is everyone
mostly here
in another building
just two locations, everyone I work with
get them together
anyone who wants to leave
I have an interviewee still
he’s been waiting 30 minutes
planes hit the buildings,
terrorists?
large planes not the twin prop
and the goddamned tv
and I can remember every person who
came to the conference room and
asked me what the latest was, what was
wrong with the reception
my brother even worked there
and I would get nothing done

Now I could sit
a minute

The tv seems like cotton wool, snowy
and New York so distant. Smoke piles skyward
and seems even distinct through the snow.

I wish the next moments were sharp
a fast knuckle in my arm
like me and my brother as kids, whack
laughter, those memories are clear
but by the time someone told me to come to the window
I felt tired,
and not too interested in the clear sky
and the oil stain smoke rising about a half
mile away, to the north.

Certainly, I said, this is bad.

I stand in an unfamiliar office
watching the Pentagon smoke jet fuel.

Well, that’s it for me, for the day

dismiss the interviewee with
a quick, firm handshake
talk on the phone
no cell phones
land lines, yes
tell people to go home
head out myself
yes, the oil stain
Pentagon burning and so
many people spilled from offices
to watch on the street

rush to the car
in another building
meet friends
yes, yes, that’s the Pentagon
or near it
a sudden explosion, pop, bam
I was in the street
people ducked and threw hands up
and I hurried

into my car with three others
one working cell phone

Windows down for fear of shatter
we waded home, in and out of streets
three and a half hours
with fighter jets circling us
and back to a clear television.

The towers had come down by then.
The Pentagon smoldered with a foul new mouth.
I passed the afternoon looking up room numbers
for corridors
that lay like stacked files
neglected
crushed, with friends inside.

I did go back two days later.
I cried at the cots for blood donors
lining the mall inside the building,
the soot smell.

Those lying on the cots
look like the victims to me
and I can only stare.