A soldier, boots-on-ground, now, …

This is an excerpt of Amalie Flynn’s poem called Wait.  To read the rest, go to her Wife and War blog at http://wifeandwar.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/wait/

On a military base, where he will train …

This is an excerpt of Amalie Flynn’s poem called Shake.  To read the rest, go to her Wife and War blog at http://wifeandwar.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/shake/

And they are talking about the war again …

This is an excerpt of Amalie Flynn’s poem called Marching.  To read the rest, go to her Americans At War blog, at http://americansatwar.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/marching/

I worry about what was in it, about how

It was filled with particles of insulation

And lead and chemicals and asbestos,

And how I breathed it in that day when

The Towers fell down, or how, even how,

When I went back, two weeks later, how

It was caked, there, on the ground, caked

On the bottom of my shoes, how I tracked

It home, through my apartment, finding it,

A light coat of dust, on my ankles, but then,

I remember what else was in that dust, how

It was made up of flesh and bone and teeth,

How there were fingernails in it and organs,

And how I am lucky, how I know that I am

Just so lucky to be alive, how I am still here,

How even though those two Towers fell,

All of those floors and stories, the people

And their stories inside, how it all fell down,

My story goes on.

Amalie Flynn is the author of another blog, Wife and War, which is based on her experience as a military wife and has been featured twice by the New York Times. She is currently working on her memoir. To see how Amalie Flynn’s story continues go to http://wifeandwar.wordpress.com/

I went back to Ground Zero, back to the site,

Where the planes hit and the bodies jumped,

And the Towers fell, while I just stood there,

On the street below, looking up, and watching.

And I am walking around Ground Zero, circling

Its high metal fences, policemen and barricades,

Meant to control the crowds, crowds of tourists

With their cameras clicking and I am here again,

Back on the corner, the same corner I stood on,

All those years ago, watching it happen, and I am

Looking down the same street, at the same space,

The space where there used to be Towers, and then

Emptiness and now cranes and scaffolding, and I am looking up

At the same building I was in when the second plane hit, and

l am thinking about it, about the tourists with their cameras,

And me, me with my memories, all of us, holding onto it,

Holding onto 9/11, holding onto it, as if,

As if disaster is something you can keep.

And it is like the sky, like the sky that day

Just before it happened, that imprint

Of blue and silver, gone now, but there,

Always there.

I left law school, and

I left New York City.

Until I couldn’t do it anymore, not with

The dust and digging of Ground Zero

Below me.