seven years

I.

seven years, and I'm still 13
suffocating and bearing the guilt
of paralyzing grief, stolen from real victims

on the planes, on their phones,
praying and crying and fighting

in their offices, working and running
and jumping

in their uniforms, serving and
pulling and digging

and dying

What trauma can I claim
on the opposite end of the coast
with my family around me
with a TV screen and many miles
separating me
from the fire and the smoke

my tears are insult to theirs.
my trembling lip, just a muscle spasm
for I and mine live.

II.

seven years, I'm 13 again.
mourning for strangers and strangers' lovers
throat closing at half-raised flags
and the sound of prayer. feeling

smaller hands clutching the foot
of the cross again, children
tears falling on trembling arms
again, crushed on all sides
by realism and other church
members, clinging, singing,

eyes still stinging with
the grief that shames.

III.

7 years ago, I used to be 13,
aged and ideals deflowered,
eyes following the plane, the two crumbling walls,
hypnotized by flame,
flooding, shutting.

before my cousin was a fireman
they pulled him out of the rubble.
before my brother was a soldier,
he watched and no one gave him orders.
before I was ever on a plane,
I saw the ground coming at my face.

hands reach across the aisle in Washington,
hymns echo.

IV.

seven years, but I'll be thirteen somedays,
at least once a year.

grief real, not caught or imagined,
not wrong but rightly, mourning--
the assaulted skyline morning, mourning--
lost and lonely lives, mourning--
declaration of war, mourning--
ideals buried at Ground Zero, mourning--
fake patriotism and decorative flags, mourning--
fear, conspiracy, blame-throwing, mourning--
accusing God, lost faith, mourning
the way it used to be
before I was thirteen.