Be Kind, Rewind – Neil Silberblatt

That day,
that cloudless Tuesday,
with its Chartres-blue sky,
I could not watch the news.
Instead, I taped the broadcasts
for later watching.

That night,
that quiet night
marred only by the ululation of widows,
I re-wound the tape and watched in reverse

as towers rose from toxic dust
as windows formed from shards of glass and
micrograms of mercury oxide
as confettied papers re-assembled themselves into
binders and file cabinets
and as young men
spread eagled like Icarus
in casual business attire,
ascended on plumes of ash
against the Chartres-blue sky
and reached their offices,
just in time for that all important
10:15 conference call