Sarah, while you were at your keyboard,
online to Japan, on the phone to your boyfriend,
just opening your inbox, scratching your ear,
playing Solitaire while you thought no one was looking,
Flight 175 was homing in on you and all those
you’d shared lunch with, a glass of white wine,
secrets you shared with not many. Ground zero
they call it now. And you, you’re in the long queue to heaven.
When you were in diapers he was in his mother,
his father on some road to some Damascus, the desert
sparks flying in his eyes. You were in kindergarten,
he was forming the first words of his language.
He was fluent then, then you were in grade school,
high school, college, he was learning by heart
his holy book, by the time you were no longer a virgin
he knew the insides and the outsides of Kalashnikovs,
M16s, hand helds. He had a licence to fly. There was a plan.
While it was forming you were on vacation in Florida.
You were phoning your mother, getting drunk
for the first time. And so perhaps was he.
Your assassin, who flew in from Boston
on an unscheduled flight, smack into you,
your keyboard, your modem, your coffee,
everyone you loved. Like a huge terrible kiss.