when you came home that afternoon
they did not let me see you immediately.
i guess because you may have been covered
in ash, fear
fragments, blood that did not belong to you
but that is only a guess. the face you wore
was not unlike your usual but every corner
was turned down and all the lines in your skin
seemed more like canyons than cracks.

in school the next day the girl near me asked if
her uncle was coming back— when i asked you all you did
was swallow—
the kids all said that by noon
you could see the devil hanging in the sky— every night for a week
we went to church and you couldn’t tell me otherwise.
so before bed after every vigil i searched
the night for his toothy smile. i didn’t see satan himself
but i swore i could see his demons in the miles
of smoke and dust, watching
the heavy fog of throat cancer years creep
across the water that used to promise me
you’re at the center of the world, you can sleep,
you are safe, secure; these towers will never fall

– alyssa hanna