Neil Aitken 9.15.01

REQUIEM
(New York City, September 11, 2001)

this morning comes
unbidden
full of dark words
twin towers burning
while people die inside
and outside ourselves
emptied with knives
and terror

stones fall from gray worlds
above our open eyes

fists are no match f
or police cars covered with debris
the slow rain of bodies from the sky
paper scattering,
unsigned, unknown,
unrecognized

dust so heavy and sharp
the lungs are torn
from breathing
eyes tear
uncontrollably

those with skin
are still gray
and wordless
walking out
and away

we can fear
we can die
we can live
somehow
we will walk on

so many stories
lie at our feet
broken, rough
twisted steel
and concrete verbs
pronouns faint
distant beats in this long sentence
of night

a woman's shoe
rests on a street corner
blocks away from its twin

someone will find it
and bring it home

(Copyright Neil Aitken 2001)
Neil Aitken
http://www.lone-crow.com/