September 11, 2001

I was nine
Nine and a half and still a little kid
and my fourth-grade teacher started crying on
the second week of school
in front of the class and all she would say was
there was a problem in Manhattan but her daughter
was okay.
School ended early and we children
clustered in the schoolyard, gleaning
what information we could and trading big words we
heard from the grown-ups but
had never before needed to know.
The grown-ups weren’t talking to us,
just reaching toward each other
like scared little kids and asking “Are all of yours okay?”
and saying “Yes, thanks be
to God,
and yours?”
telling us “Just shush, shush, stay right here
by me.”
The older kids looked shaken and
spoke in pretentious tones undercut
by wavers and tremors and adolescent
cracks in their voices, saying
something about a bomb.