September Snow
by Janet I. Buck

Hand to chest in stadiums,
an anthem rolls in choppy
cartwheels on the grass.
Photos speak of wasted milk
in cartons of our liberty.
Just as if some god asleep
thrust his fist in flour sacks --
we are rolling in its tar.
Grieving lights a string of votives
sea to barely shining sea.

September's snow is
paper from a stock exchange
on pork chop granite
peppered with the missing dead.
Numbers climb
the wobbled trellis of remains.
I should kiss the cracked
and chasmed lips of home
while mantles stand
like short-lived prayers.
Terror takes a city's breast.
Heartbeats chant below the scar.

A child draws a fallen tower,
stuffs it in his mother's purse,
hoping she will bleach the clouds,
paint the sky a brighter blue.
Heroes hoe this tragedy,
shovel rubble into trucks,
rake these ills of ruined dream,
play mid-wives of deliverance.
Flags emerge through smoke and dust,
their colored angels restless
for a whiter earth.
A fireman's helmet in the ash
rocks like half a Faberge.

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