Don’t Remember

A memory in blank verse

I don’t remember 9/11. Yes, it’s

true. I’m not about to grit my teeth and

lie, like I could ever know the feeling

of the Center of the World collapsing

in on us. It’s not a fact I’m proud of

but it’s just a fact that’s true. I don’t

remember 9/11. When my children

or their children ask me where I was

when both the Herculean Pillars holding

up the sense the world had made went falling

down like dominoes too close together,

all I’ll say is that I don’t remember

9/11. I was four, and four-year-olds

are not well known for their abilities

in memory. “Kid, did you clean your

room?” “I don’t remember.” “Did you

feed your gerbil yet this morning?” “I’m not

sure, I don’t remember.” “Did a cloud of

ash and chemicals and bodies sear its

way into your memory, a constant

burning on the inside where, unlike a

rug burn or a sunburn, it can never

heal, a tragedy still gnawing at your

conscience and your mind sixteen years later?”

“I don’t know.” No, no, I don’t remember

9/11. Memory’s a constant jumble.

Sometimes things you thought you had forgotten

reappear like phantoms, here one minute,

gone the next, as if they’re running

late for yet another meeting with their

memory support group, where their sponsor

tells them “Just accept you’ll be forgotten,

just like everyone eventually

will be. The sooner you get on with it,

the sooner we’ll be able to move on.”

But we all know that’s a lie. For even

though I don’t remember 9/11,

I remember clearly (who knows when

or why) a flight from San Diego

making its descent to JFK, and

looking out the window at the skyline

dominated by two giant slabs of

window glass and chrome and rebar concrete,

offices and restaurants and hopes and

dreams and length and width and height

above all else, right there outside my window,

looking sturdy, even indestructible, and

marveling on what we did that turned this

swampy piece of rock we call Manhattan

to the pillars of the gods themselves.

I don’t remember 9/11, that’s still

true, but I remember thoughts of safety,

that the world’s foundations lay secure,

although such thoughts have not been thought for many

years, because some memories are still

remembered. Two tall towers, yet remembered.