Lady Liberty turns her face as the buildings fall to dust
One
Two.
The news stations play the same questions over and over and over.
They call all the people who have a drop of an opinion on the matter.
They crowd the faces of elected officials, law enforcement, innocent bystanders,
Anyone with an inkling of sense still rattling around their dust-filled brains behind their dust-filled eyes
And they draw half-answers out of them with a slow syringe, and distribute them through radio waves and TV broadcasts as security blankets, and they just keep talking
Because the silence of unanswered questions is too loud for them to bear.
The president speaks as eloquently as possible.
He is calm. He is precise.
His written words, his anchors,
Float up like the smoke
That took hours to clear that day.
And the doctors’ knees quake under the weight of all the people’s souls they cradle in their arms,
And they just keep piling on,
One
Two.
Tens
Twenties,
Wondering how many more bodies will come through the door,
How much more blood there will be,
When, if ever, they will go home.
–
Four hours and nine minutes have passed when the bombs go off
One
Two.
Not everyone crossed the finish line.
The news stations play the same questions over and over
And they just keep talking
Because the silence of unanswered questions is too loud for them to bear
And they’re playing it over and over and over again,
One two
one two
one two
one two
Burning it into the TV screen’s retinas so much
We’ll have to buy eyeglasses to cover the cataracts
Because tragedies are best seen in red, blue, green,
High definition
Surround sound.
The president is calm and precise,
His written words, his anchors,
Distributed through the airwaves like security blankets
More noise over the unanswered questions
And the doctors saw away limbs shredded into ribbons
Wondering how many more bodies will come through the door,
How much more blood there will be,
When, if ever, they will go home.
__
They held a moment of silence before the 117th Boston Marathon
For the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
So the marathoners could hold them for a moment in their hard-beating hearts,
Remember the presents under the Christmas trees that never got opened that December
And honor the life coursing through their limbs, through their lungs
As they ran towards the finish.
But they forgot the bombs that went off today,
An ocean between us and the sound.
They forgot the little boy with a smile cracked like a Haitian sidewalk
His ribcage reaching out to swallow his skin up.
They forgot the man torn apart for the contents of his pockets.
They forgot the babies sold into slavery,
The girl with the brown eyes and freckles no one has seen since last week
The woman with her eyes made of shattered glass
Because she can’t unsee the monster that defiled her.
More than anything in this world
I want to be a mom.
But I know that my son will grow up
With security blankets made of half-answers
With lullabies of people just talking, talking
Trying to fill up the silence of unanswered questions
With written anchors floating up like smoke
Like building dust and uncrossed finish lines
With eyeglasses on our TV and
The silence no one ever seems to have for the people
They forgot.