Free verse poetry

Watching TV

on September 11th

Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash

Watching TV

Behind the no-space between
my breast and her cheek,
warm with milk and slumber,
my heart is doing too many things at once.
Is it that which wakes her?
Or my grip holding her tight enough
to try to hold the future safe
as I watch the second plane

>>>hit<<<

and even time shocks and shatters.
Jumbled lives and limbs crumble
to mangled scrap, spilling
a cold hard rain of concrete,
and lethal dust, pauses, clouds and gathers,
spreads, billows, stretches
…beyond the warm wet tears at gravesides
…beyond the empty shoes, and empty beds,
the empty hands of husbands, wives, sons
…daughters…so many empty spaces
…beyond the screen’s edges
casting a poison on all our houses…

Her woken eyes watch me,
>>>a snug tiny fist<<<
resting with a world’s weight
on my chest.

The First World’s Prayer