While I deliberate
between scrambled eggs
and breakfast cereal,
they are leaping from the towers
to elude the flames.
They are burning alive
under the concrete rubble.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Glued to the television for hours.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Glued to the television for hours.
No work is done.
A friend arrives for consolation.
"I can't take anymore," she cries,
switching the channel
to Cartoon Network.
We get high
and watch animated characters
gleefully bludgeon each other,
but only for a moment
before returning to the day's events.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Rumors of an oil-price spike.
At the station, a line of cars
coils around the block.
Neighbors honk and shriek
at one another.
I wait nearly an hour to fill up.
The man at pump three
lights a cigarette.
The woman at pump four
demands he put it out.
"Lady, haven't you heard?"
the man responds.
"It's the end of the world!"
She looks to me for support.
I say nothing.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Fanatics have seized the day,
religious zealots drunk with vanity
and self-righteous rage.
One of ours is on the radio
One of ours is on the radio
blaming abortionists, pagans,
liberals and feminists,
gays and lesbians,
the ACLU.
"I POINT A FINGER IN THEIR FACE!"
he howls.
liberals and feminists,
gays and lesbians,
the ACLU.
"I POINT A FINGER IN THEIR FACE!"
he howls.
"YOU HELPED THIS HAPPEN!"
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
A dinner party assembles.
"I'm inclined to show mercy,"
Philip declares.
"We must respond with dignity,"
says Katherine.
I am back in the Kuwait desert
where Marines sift through charred bodies
and shattered, starving Iraqi soldiers
ordered to fight the infidels
or face a bullet to the head.
"Drop a nuke on the bastards,"
James says.
James says.
I reach for another bottle of wine.
In Manhattan,
they're still pulling the dead
from the wreckage.
