Skyline

I remember the silence. It was five years ago, but I can still see their faces. They were all eighteen years old, most living away from home for the first time. Most had been awake all night, unable to pull themselves away from the horrific images on the television screen, trying desperately to get through jammed phone lines, and waiting, waiting for news, waiting to hear who was alive and who was dead. The early morning truck had delivered newspapers to the building, and a few students carried the papers into class with them.

These students have all graduated and all gone onto grad school or jobs. Many have returned home, to the City Like No Other, the city whose skyline was changed dramatically that day. This week, I am thinking of them.

SKYLINE: SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

for nick
a jedi knight from brooklyn
who wants to change the world
who during class once took a vote
on which body part he should pierce

for brooklyn mike and long island sean
who claimed on the botany hike
that they were getting attacked
by flesh-eating spiders

for manhattan nick
who almost got thrown out of school
for rock-climbing in the elevator shaft

for jen who says the symbol
of her home community is the staten island landfill

for crissy who will forever clash with her feminist teacher
about whether or not she should work at hooters

for eldon and donald
who had to explain to me what a ho was

for dave from queens who thinks pot should be legal

for phil who says
gay men rock

for hugh who is not afraid to wear a badge of silence

i want to write a poem for my students
but today there is nothing i can teach them
that they do not already know
more deeply than i do

for evan who once swam in the fountain outside the world trade center
for lauren who wears a ny city transit card on her sleeve
who plans to be a vet
although we all think she should run for president

"it’s amazing" lauren writes "how close people
get to one another when they are scared"

for ellie who puts exquisite tiny drawings
inside the pupil of an eye
who sees things no one else sees

for gena who says that leaving her neighborhood
was escaping the abyss

"i felt so guilty" writes gena "safe here upstate
when everyone i love was in danger"

for sasha who has sad eyes
who doesn’t want to be here

for andrew who finds wildlife in queens

for greg who looks way too young on his military id
who is so skinny
that they will send him into the crevices
to search for bodies

if i could write a poem today
if i had words for this silence
i would dedicate it to my students

for mike who lost his uncle
for steve who lost his cousin
for daven who will go to two funerals in one day

for wellington
who taught me the spanish word for hope

for all these kids who always looked to the sky
to find the twin towers
to orient themselves
to find their way home