To Tom Brokaw on September 11, 2001
you were right
when you called it an attack,
but it is an attack on our strengths
not weaknesses.
we have been stripped of comfort
by a man hoping to level democracy,
plotting our slow fade to red white and who?
how did you keep your speech steady
while voicing-over shots
of weeping policemen and terrified firefighters,
watching shell-shocked stockbrokers
clasping hands and running
down city blocks?
how did you keep from blinking
as you saw our freshman president tossed headfirst
into the shark tank?
you were right
when you called it an attack,
but the victims are more than those in the buildings
and in the air.
They are my parents and your teachers,
news reporters and those kids at my school
who don't even say the Pledge of Allegiance.
they are victims
because they are dead.
we are victims
because we are alive.
-MWE
11 September 2001
