Saturday, September 11th, 2021: twenty years afterward
The day was a perfect painting of
the original, 20 years ago, except Saturday
was a mistake, felt wrong and I kept
forgetting what day of the week it was.
Should have been Tues. Was then.
The 11th outgrew the day;
from inside, what felt like a cell
extending 20 years long to a pandemic
I looked out to a place where
nobody I loved died yet:
my mother, a man I called husband, another
I loved, three invisible plots: 2012, 2013, 2018
seared in my mind with that other one
smashed to pieces, piled up past the sky
emitting a terrible smell…
they weren’t there
but are here now on this anniversary of it;
nobody is outside. Not in New York.
Not in this country.