Closer Than Being Here

The screen fills with an image of
brown whirling dust
because the cameraman has been thrown to the ground
by impact of Tower 2 collapsing.
Wind from a crumbling fountain
licks past the microphone.
Minutes go by and the peaceful scene of floating powder
plays with stagnant images of fear –
five thousand souls and their ascent, silent into death.

—Jennifer Quan

Naive

1
Soon it went up everywhere,
Stars and stripes
Peering out from Indian restaurants,
Chinese restaurants, and every Korean deli,
Claiming sanctuary.

2
He said, 'it's my brother's house
we are bombing in the streets of Belgrade.'
I remember his suffering face.

3
With ten thousand souls trapped under rubble
I sat in Central park under trees,
on grass still wet from the morning dew
that faithfully dissolved that day.
Looking at the blue sky,
I felt serene.

—Yuna Lee

What Can Make Glass Shatter
(From Letters to the Danaid)

I searched through twilight scented the color of ripe plums
Walked the steps where we sat that night in the park
The trees drinking the dark
The underside of their leaves moonlit and flashing

Homesick for a place that was never my home
And went back to my apartment
And fell asleep reading your imaginary letter

Dreaming a voice delicate as wine or blood
The city in flames the towers fallen
Our lives together or apart
Nothing an indulgence neither of us could buy

That place I searched for is still there
Buried in ash under ideologies and melted steel
Still in the world exactly where we happened on those steps

That flashing your voice gone the night
You opened to me gone into a sky without stars
If I could peel off your skin and lay it flat
I'd only be tracing the shape of my death with your blood

I brood on the seared bone of absence
Beloved little lamb you're a mess of butterflies and geckos
And I'm down-in-the-bone blue

I lost you to the way all things live because
Our names aren't drawn out of dreams any more than dew
Washing ash off the leaves of honey locusts
I wanted your fingers on my lips when I died

—Ron Price