Manhattan

Tears, white
flecked fears, peeling paper-shreds, fragments of floors,
dust under a sunlit sky early that Tuesday, this September,
on a mid-Manhattan Morning.  Grey, dusted figures drift
stunned under this shattered, Autumn-skied space figures stumble through Down -town streets,  in wordless silence.

North and
then carrying early morning coffee cups greeting friends
with idle chat from lift doors and lobbies, across a paper
pile stacked here and there, still under yesterday’s desk till howling siren – scream, as explosion then implosion, took
out first this floor, then those above and many beneath.

South where
orange glow and scattered fragments filled wide windows open spaces  where, in stunned amazement, people stood. The grey-haired banker, the brash – young stock broker, the imaginative engineer, the young sharp eyed carpenter, staring speechless, unable fully to understand, secure still
within their personal space, beyond an expanding fireball.

Final impact
on South,  a faint line of hope gone,  as Mothers of young ones,  the Father of four,  wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, lovers, friends and families, the casual workers, those city consultants,
the cluster of company directors, their frantic fingers on mobile phones,  tapping out numbers and only cold voiced answering machines responding.   Final call.

Ground zero.

October  2001, New York City   Manhattan 9/11