Garage Sale -- My obsession with 9/11 - Poem: Coming Home

Every year there's a garage sale on my son's street. I took this pic from the house where I said hello to Nicole and baby Grace. A friend and her kid were over.

"Hi Sara," I said.

She corrected me with her huge smile. "Courtney and this is Lily," she said.

I asked where she was on 9/11. She said she was living in Manhattan and watched it on TV. They got different news coverage, she said, than the rest of the country, so as not to cause panic to New Yorkers.

My daughter Sarah lived in Brooklyn and hiked to New York to give massages to the fire-fighters.

I was home, here on Cowbell, having a transient psychotic episode. I wrote about it for Patch.com so hopefully my editor will publish it.

Ed's antique Chevy. He lives next to Dan and will show it at the Roslyn Car Show. I've always loved cars and remember when I was a kid I loved the looks of the new Studebaker Avanti.

Ah, here's the little lady now, after the guests have gone. Mwah! Click once or twice to enlarge. Wouldn't it be funny if Grace actually GREW when we did this?
Dan gave me this mortar and pestle (M&P) he was selling. And I bot this yellow highlighter from Ed, who I bargained down from $1 to 50-cents.

Ready for the M&P story? When I worked at Cal/Ink in San Francisco, in the early 1970s, my boss was D. R. Garrett, director of purchasing. People used to send him gifts in the mail, terrible gifts, and he would give them to me.

The only one I can remember was a polished metal ashtray with the word Molybdenum on it. Maybe I took it home to put our roaches on.

The only thing, tho, I ever wanted, was when he got a mortar and pestle something like this.

So I took it, thinking I would grind my garlic cloves with it. What else could I use it for? Hey, mashing cauliflower!

Against my will, I am absolutely fascinated with all things 9/11. Found a terrific website that I could not tear myself away from until I'd read every last word.

The following, from the website, is absolutely chilling. He's on the 80-something floor in the south Tower of the World Trade Center:

And for no apparent reason in mid-sentence I just raised my head and looked to the Statue of Liberty and what I see is a big plane coming towards me. This plane is coming, eye level towards me. Eye contact. I'm seeing a big gray plane, with a red stripe, and I can still see it in my eyes now. I dropped the phone, screamed, dove under my desk and I don't know why I said what I tell you now. "Lord, you take over. I can't do this."

"And I don't know, I do not know, as God be my witness, and I'm a deacon in my Sunday school and church and I'm a Sunday school superintendent, I would not tell you a lie here. I don't know why I said it, but I screamed."

The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway.

Coming home from the Giant supermarket late one nite, some words came to me about a poem. I wrote em down on a pink pad I keep in the car.

I usually trick myself by writing a poem when I'm falling asleep on my laptop, which is what happened. I like to read it aloud so I read it to my 93-year-old Aunt Selma of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who followed every word.

COMING HOME

Come down to the grocery store
5 percent off from the
coupon I taped to my bonus card
let Debbie the cap-wearing fishmonger bring me peace
five years ago her dizziness and blurred vision
heralded a brain tumor
scooped out like a canteloup ball with that special
round spoon by the surgeon
forever praise his name
or the Produce Man asking
lady, need more boxes for your junk mail?
The tenth anniversary’s this Sunday.
no escaping it
tho’ it’s a two hour drive from Pennsylvania
the phone call came when I was in the kitchen
having my coffee with cream and two
spoons of sugar
I do like my sweets

Don’t worry, babe, he said. Have you turned on
the TV?
I did and
watched my cup begin to shake
coffee on the morning paper
burning my hands
yesss, I said
and waited

I may not be home for dinner, Beth
I may not ever see you again –
his voice low
a-quiver like Sarah Vaughan
in her later years
but I want to let you know how much
I love you and our
unborn children.

The birds were coming to the feeder
darting in for the mixed seeds
feeder swinging merrily
back and forth
back and forth
Tell me, I said,
don’t spare me,
I want to hold you in my arms,
my darling man,
- on the 86th floor -

Hard to breathe,
darkness all around
sounds, such sounds,
can you hear them?
I knew these people
they were my friends
I’ll do my best to make it home for dinner
but, Beth, I’m not so sure if I'm
dead or alive – gasp –
if I don’t show up for dinner
I love you, Betts.

Sockeye salmon and asparagus
mashed potatoes the way he liked them
ice cream and Hershey’s syrup for dessert
I’m dining alone tonight
Yahrzeit candle flickering in the
darkened kitchen
and the illustrious walls of
freedom emptying out
my home.