September School Run
Planes
The flight path
Is over our
School run route
That morning
It crosses
Above us
On my way
Back from school
The radio dies
Right at the
Road where it
Always does
I turn off
The static
Miss hearing
Just as the
Plane hits glass
No radio
Instead I
Listen to
My dog snore
While people
Watching at
Windows burn
Trains
We are late
To school many
Days that fall
Waiting at
The train tracks
For debris
From the site
To rumble
Through our town
Diverted
From landfill
At Fresh Kills
Wreckage of
The towers
Laid in state
PCBs
Beautiful
Asbestos
Perhaps bits
Of bodies
Dogs could not
Find in the
Hot rubble
Form the dust
Open top
Caskets of
Raw ruins
Automobiles
From under
The railroad
Crossing gate
I watch a
Desperate
Man throw a
Rock at a
Car window
To free his
Dog locked
Inside with
His lost key
At impact
Almost dead
From the heat
Like a corpse
You cannot
Say a thing
But know a
Quick fierce fond
Feral love
Of human
Might rightness
And virtue
Your fur lit
With safety
Glass a ruff
Of glitter
Gems green and
Good descend
–Ticky Kennedy
Poet in Residence
NOTES:
According to a Justice Department Report to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, “More people are now believed to have died of 9/11-related illnesses than were lost on September 11, 2001.”
According to 9/11: the Controversial Story of the Remains of the World Trade Center, “Fresh Kills became a graveyard for unidentifiable bodies. The monstrous ruins further escaped the attempt to control them, their toxic vapors proving harmful to the workers on site.”
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