December 15th 2001 in New York

We emerged from the deep
churning subconscious
and the city of horns rose still

Quiet before us like Gotham
without need
for a pair of knights

We needed
something though

Something calm to close
Something shared to fill this gaping
Anything to bridge the distance
we know we didn’t feel

We moved as one
soundless organism tethered
to an unspoken silence
Tethered by a haunting magnetism
that has no words
Drawn by the inability
to make our native tongue feel less
foreign in our heads

We tread gentle
and felt the depth of air

Felt the church-like static
of the crowd

We wore the same sense
of loss

The same bewildered expression
through glossy eyes
passed walls of paper faces
that tried so desperately futile to expose
just what was lost

Passed the roses

Passed those simple flowers
we knew someday would
but hoped would never die

Past the drying petals
we could see the twisted distance

We could see the hole in the heart of America

We felt the soil move
We felt the unified cry

Though we knew

Not every drop
Not every intensity
inside every heartbeat on that mute street
Not even every tear
could save
these flowers now

But we stood

And couldn’t move
otherwise
through the void