9-11 Diary

Horrific morning.

While I deliberate
between scrambled eggs
and breakfast cereal,

they are leaping from the towers

to elude the flames.

They are burning alive

amid the concrete rubble.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Glued to the television for hours.

No work is done.

A friend arrives for consolation.

"I can't take any more," 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

blaming abortionists, pagans,
liberals and feminists,
gays and lesbians,
the ACLU.

"I POINT THE 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.

I reach for another bottle of wine.

In Manhattan,

they're still pulling the dead

from the wreckage.