What happened to me on September 11, 2004 |
a booth in the restaurant, after his father's place the time whooshing past plastic shopping carts at the Wal-Mart fried fish, before that on a Sunday with mother, alive well, and happy poor Don, his brother, retarded from birth knowing only his own fantasies locked in a world without love his loud father hard-of-hearing telling him to stop laughing, maybe years ago but now stern and cautious with him I, scared as a jaybird in front of the two siblings sculpted ceramic animals turtle, squirrel, dog, cat awry on his father's coffeetable I could almost hear nothing but MSNBC crying echoes of the Twin Towers a ghost let loose in its midst, on such a Black Saturday as this I look at my check peering down at the words EAT IN at the restaurant shoulders up against his as he rubs his hand over my arm friends across the table mixing the table sat with chit-chat the slip said 6:27 PM and the waitress's name what a timely moment to Bless America eating Peach Pie a la mode safe inside the Walls of just another hometown busy place to dine I died a bit our lives laid out within the ranks of millions of people looking out the windows to say a prayer with the evening's compass the story of such tragic proportions asking sympathy for Satan I will sweat it out, to find the answers |