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.
Tragedy sucks the life
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Glued to the television for hours.
Tragedy sucks the life
from daily routine.
Here, 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 has raises his ugly head.
One of ours has raises his ugly head.
He's 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.
My thoughts journey back
to 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.
