911 what’s our emergency
for 9/11

a mockery of the emergency call
I suppose
so many have apprehended
bitterly
the code

all the poor people
poor
by innocence
who could not be a proper target
on the field
where training and some rules
apply

but were defeated out of line
and protocol
by
simply wanting to have the day
while savages tried to
proclaim
no normal life for these

then
all those after who arrived
to serve
again
unmilitary but civilian
need

two piles of stories
parts
of bodies
bodies
still living and were found
and
saved from the wreckage

on both sides
rescued and rescuer
to begin the later
toil
over sickness in
survival

so in Washington the same
as they worked with each other
plus
all those arriving
to locate
and viscerally to grieve

both fright and assessment somehow
given in
the moments before
during
and after

fear
and loathing

and ask to bless the ones who fought
back
having figured the cost
but
took fewer lives
in a field in Pennsylvania

the disasters
the deaths
then
responding

we do now go our own
from such but intertwined
as
honest differences
fade some
while we
live
and work
and mourn

then to bury
and memorial
a verb

and we go on
differences lightly worn
maybe now
but
in a national identity
could be
bright as not before

though
it should not
take
such happenings
to mind a nation

regardless
so to live the catastrophic day
hurt
angry
woeful
wishing more
wishing less
but
in all agendas
yet
together

we
hope
we respond
we live

c l couch

photo by Holly Riley on Unsplash
“Tower of Voices at Flight 93 Memorial
Shanksville, United States”