head upward you hear as if in slow motion floor
collapse evenly upon floor as one hundred and ten
floors descend upon you.
May what you have made descend upon you.
May the listening ears of your victims their eyes their
breath
enter you, and eat like acid
the bubble of rectitude that allowed you breath.
May their breath now, in eternity, be your breath.
Now, as you wished, you cannot for us
not be. May this be your single profit.
Of your rectitude at last disenthralled, you
seek the dead. Each time you enter them
they spit you out. The dead find you are not food.
Out of the great secret of morals, the imagination to enter
the skin of another, what I have made is a curse.
collapse evenly upon floor as one hundred and ten
floors descend upon you.
May what you have made descend upon you.
May the listening ears of your victims their eyes their
breath
enter you, and eat like acid
the bubble of rectitude that allowed you breath.
May their breath now, in eternity, be your breath.
Now, as you wished, you cannot for us
not be. May this be your single profit.
Of your rectitude at last disenthralled, you
seek the dead. Each time you enter them
they spit you out. The dead find you are not food.
Out of the great secret of morals, the imagination to enter
the skin of another, what I have made is a curse.
--Frank Bidart (1936- ), American poet and professor at Wellesley. Robert Pinsky discusses this poem here at the L. A. Times in 2002: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-08-oe-newpinsky8-story.html
A list of poems curated by the Library of Congress about 9/11 can be found here: https://guides.loc.gov/poetry-of-september-11/selected-poems
Image: The Tower of Voices at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA.
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