Superman
September 11th, 2001
© 2001 Devon Koren

I.

I woke up this morning
to add three more paragraphs
to a story I had started writing
for a friend the night before.
My mind riddled,
the gnawing worry of my brother's alienation,
my mother's depression,
my daughter's inability to speak.
My head stuffy, I went through
five tissues
before I stopped writing
to make a phone call.

On hold, a muffled radio voice
mumbled something about a hijacked plane
heading towards Washington.
An advertisement for that movie,
a radio show, some work of fiction.
'Crazy,' I said, cocking an eyebrow.
'Must be something like War of the Worlds.'

We ate breakfast.
I scrambled eggs, added cheese.
My daughter forced a few bites down before
pushing away from the table
demanding cartoons.

I grudgingly clicked on the television.
New York, and smoke.

Piecemeal information dithered through pixelated images.
Scattered. Panic.
Pillars of smoke leering over the tops of skyscrapers.
Such a small city, such a large fist.

I said, 'This isn't happening.'

II.

Where the hell are you, Superman?
Superman doesn't let planes get hijacked.
He doesn't let skyscrapers collapse.
He'll hold the place up until
everyone gets out of it --
even the people in wheelchairs.

III.

Two towers collapse, layers of glass
peeled away beneath
the unyielding force of gravity,
almost stop-motion, so quick.
Potential energy shifts to kinetic.

Reporters fight evacuation.
The tape breaks,
loops into eerie repetition.

I stand. I clutch my daughter close,
catch my breath in her curls,
and shiver. One reality left.
I sway back and forth, expecting the foundation
to give way.

IV.

A magnitude of epic loss,
and we don't even know where Superman is.

V.

Two towers, from a Tolkien novel,
from a tarot deck.
A pentagon, with five magic sides
aligning elements.
This is symbolic terrorism --
magical warfare.
This is a language I understand --
primal, and horrifying.

VI.

You see, I was doing alright
until the thirtieth showing of Dante's carnal footage
yields a silhouette cascading from the high-rise window
in freefall.
Something small explodes in my stomach.
Bosch could not have painted anything so horrific.

VII.

I shut my eyes to a replay of the impossible.
Sleep, one hundred thousand miles away.

I have never been afraid of monsters,
until tonight.
My reality broken by an onslaught of
inconcievable images,
anything becomes possible.
Thousands of ghosts make their appearance
on my doorstep.
A mourning cry, a continous drone of
wailing
just below the surface
like white noise.

VIII.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Superman.
He wears the disguise of fire fighters,
police officers, medical agents,
people across America in long, spiraling lines
waiting to surrender their blood
for their country.
He's the friendly voice on the other line,
letting you know that,
somehow,
everything is going to be all right.
He's sacrificing everything
to divert a makeshift terrorist missile
from reaching its intended target.
He's busy delivering last rites
on the streets of New York,
connecting stricken families
with any available knowledge of missing loved ones.
He's breaking rocks, and digging,
knee-deep in ash, soot.
Superman sends emails of concern from overseas.
Last night, he drove an hour in the
middle of the night
to tell me a story about a little elf with a star in
a glass box,
just so I could get some sleep.

IX.

The human spirit has triumphed.
America has triumphed.
We break the rocks, we breathe, we bleed,
we check in, we embrace, in tears.
Arms, hands, paper chains link a nation together.
Here, the brilliant evidence that
we are not alone, nor were we ever.

Our towers collapsed, our five walls reduced by one,
but the spell was not completed.
Beneath this ugly fist of impossibility and smoke,
we still stand.

United, in love,
we will stand,
forever.