The rescuers’ mission bound for Tehran
ended in wreckage burned on the sands.
Watched day and night through the snipers’ sights
Sarajevo’s people chose:
starve or be shot in the streets.
romance, heartbreak.
marriage, divorce.
My friend Dave Anderson’s cow
broke through the fence and walked away
we searched through the hottest part of the day
we got her home but I can’t recall how
I married again
A woman calling from Flight Eleven
had a vision of how it was going to end
Oh
my
God was the last her family heard her say
In a lecture hall watching the towers fail and fall
I can’t see what I’m seeing, I said
to someone an arm’s length away
to my left like death
A woman about to give birth was carried
wounded from rubble that minutes before
had been a hospital’s walls
in its basement some newborns survived the raid
their mothers held them in longing and dread
artillery firing over their heads
a wait dragged on, then firing again
then waiting again
again
Wheat grew in fields cratered by shells
If I had a cow, her herbivore eyes
watching me day by day would ask
Is he going to feed me, does he remember
must I find grass somewhere else to graze
I would not forget to bring hay
This might be something or nothing at all
11/18/23
