The stork of 9/11

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Ten women who died on Sept. 11, and one in the Feb. 1993 bombing, were known to be pregnant.

NBC New York

Before you weighed up the choices of fire or fall

I think of that flame growing inside you

New York reflected in the windows

you reflected out of it, still.

 

The theft visible in your eyes, the eyes of your Mother

she is watching television glass, still, safe as houses

your photograph in glass, all American girl

you reflected out of it, still.

 

In stillness there is a movement inside our borrowed blood,

that embryo will be sun very quickly, I promise

you will fly into glass and you won’t feel a thing,

at home the photo-frame of you will suddenly crack.

 

We all go home to our Mothers, it does not matter how or when.

We all go home and we go there carried by hand or wind.

We all go home and return like salmon exhausted.

We all burn up like unseen stars, you were a world.

 

You were a world from your Uterus, a half-curved world oh babe,

you will never cry in her arms that were stork wings for seconds.

I hear the thud of jumpers in every earth shattering heartbeat.

I think as you fell that your eyes poured out your whole life.