Mushrooms eclipsing neighbouring streets
Buildings and cars, commuters and
People exchanging dollars for newspapers or
Doughnuts exploding on shirt collars
Running for refuge in nearby corners, under coats, clothes
Reserving air from the smoke
As it seizes its immediate path, like dense liquid to a container
Submerging the nearest stranger
Through the red gossamer glow, hermetic and unmoved by events as
The lights turn nonchalantly from amber to green
“Did you see that plane?” one says
“Oh my god!” in repost
The cost of life is invaluable, insurmountable
As families crumble like steel
Now malleable and brittle under the searing scorn of that concrete New York sun
“Terrorist hijackers, what have they done?” Another asks disbelieving
Whilst watching panic flapping
Its arms where once was calm
The hot dog stall is unmanned and overturned
Bits of bodies with mustard in baps
“Where is God?” Another asks
As disassembled limbs slap on tarmac
“We’re under attack!”
Grey smog clings, unfettered, to any substance
Clouding vision but clarifying judgement, empirical
Whilst the world swirls with polka dots and striped socks
A girl in a dress is pulled from the rubble. A miracle,
To think she’s intact. “Here is God at last!” a woman shouts
With peace of mind that is otherwise in pieces, like imploded panes of glass.
But should I feel bad, for finding amusement through dusty internal organs?
For a miracle to have occurred, people would emerge
Unscathed from ground zero and
Brush the concrete from their clothes and go home.
The life of the girl I’ll take as a tonic,
But miracle it is not
Perhaps Allah is just as incompetent
Or maybe Our Father was being ironic.
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