4615. ABOUT THE TIME

ABOUT THE TIME
(9-11-01)
About the time I was shilling the plants, the crop duster
was eating his remainders; taking things from slide to
drop, it all became his earnings. And then all those people
were lining up - instant TV celebration, again and again.
-
I couldn't tell what anyone meant - a cloud of white dust,
a hundred thousand things falling harshly fast into the ground:
hopes, dreams, outstretched arms, failings, gleanings, hearts
and minds. Some were looking up, to others looking down, but
nothing really mattered now - all that was before the crash.
-
I saw a girl with red shoes, stunned, crying brutally on the ground.
Most of her was covered white, but the shoes remained scuffed
and red, and with her sound - with legs drawn up, immodestly
showing all - the endless pain was showing.
-
Sirens and blazes of noise, more screams, and the sounds of
water. Everything at once, together, yielding noise and bad
for the bad and the wrong, the sluice of foul meaning at
the price of a clear and blue morning's song.