On visiting the 9/11 Memorial

There’s a window washer 

on the glass eye of the Oculus.

White spines jut out and up

like skeletal wings or fins.

Inside we descend to the vast

open floor with a ceiling as high

as a cathedral bathed in the 

bright gray light of this day.

People are lined up to take

photos of themselves sitting

on the sword throne from

the popular Netflix series.

We continue through this

vast underground mall.

Everything is bone white and ribbed.

Have we been swallowed like Jonah?

A whale who seems to have feasted

on Longines, Breitling and Boss.

Apple, Kate Spade and Swarovski

We just want find the 9/11 Memorial.

Arrows point the way to the new

One World Observation Deck.

We are looking for the reflecting pools,

the monument honoring the dead.

At the far end of the subterranean

white corridor we emerge

to the ferry terminal? where did we

miss the path, the door, the exit?

Man says go back all the way to

the stairs at the other end of the

white corridor. Wrong again, it’s

as if we are in an Escher illusion.

One more kind person says to us

“The shortest distance between

two points is a straight line, right?"

Go back all the way that you just came

and go out the revolving doors

on your right at the end. The stairs

go up to the plaza. And so they did

and so did we. To the memorial.

There. Beyond the trees, people

line the edges. It’s concentric squares

a pit within a pit, with water hissing

down the sides to form a square

reflecting pool with dark square void

at the center where the water

vanishes from view. You can not see

the bottom, wherever that might be.

But you can hear it. Sizzling.

The waist high polished black granite

parapet has the names of the dead incised

into it, each letter outlined with bronze.

We touch them, run our fingers across

them as if we were reading braille.

There are 3,000 of them, we can not

touch them all, but I do touch

Norma Taddei, Aida Rosario,

Sean Booker, Sr, Peter Craig Alderman

Caleb Arron Dack, Chantal Vincelli,

Rajesh Arjan Mirpuri, Stuart Soo-jin Lee...

On the way back to the Fulton Street

subway station, we pass life-size bronze

statues of a rhinoceros about to play

a game of chess with a dogman in a suit.

A woman with a rabbit head reading a book

sits beside an elephant drinking a cup of tea.

A steady stream of visitors pose with

the bronzes or gaze into the memorial pit. 

Markers

The name card was missing

on the stamped aluminum

grave marker. Only the frame

remained. Patented apparently.

Numbers 1276798 and 1573268.

A dozen steps away,

at the foot of an oak,

a small wooden cross,

leans to one side.

No claim, no name but

loved enough by someone

to stick a single stem

of pink plastic flowers

in the ground beside it.

Wm. I. Armstrong, who served

in the 3rd Ohio Infantry

has an upright slab

of pale granite.

A fist-sized stone secures

three strands of gold and silver

pea-sized beads on a half-buried boulder.

Chrysanthemums, roses,

carnations, daisies, and begonias

adorn the grave of Haley Ann

who was born and died on the same day.

Flags and eagles, angels,

an elephant and a faded

can of Budweiser 

lie at the feet of a life-sized

iron silhouette of a cowboy

leaning against a tree.

Tiny burrs have clung to

the legs of our pants, our

socks, and shoe laces and

it’s ninety degrees in the

parched weed shade

of this old cemetery.

We don’t notice until

we leave.

'fifty nine

San Joaquin sidewalk

at ten remembers

five o’clock’s heat.

warns my feet,

stay off the blacktop.

The turf beside it

lightly tickles my soles,

until I step on

a random sticker

in a patch of bur weed.

The sprinklers are going

so I go back on the sidewalk.

The cool wet concrete

soothes the sting.

There’s a mockingbird

in an elm tree across

the street singing

his version of the afternoon

ice cream truck jingle.

No ice cream tonight,

I’d gladly turn the handle,

but slices of ice cold

watermelon will do.

We can shriek and spit

black seeds at each other.

And maybe we can sneak

a slice of some leftover

chocolate pie.

Out in the darkness

away from the house

we lie back on the grass

and look for the red winking

wing lights of airplanes

heading east.

And sometimes,

if we’re lucky, we track

the tiny white speck

of Sputnik as it

crosses the sky.