Missing AA Flight 11 on 9/11

For want of a nail . . . the rider was lost. –from a 13th century proverb.

 

What if I had not forgotten the pectin? 

What if the beach plum jam had jelled in time 

for me to box up the twelve jars the day before 

my flight out of Logan? I’d have mailed the jam

—August conserved in amber syrup perfection—

back home as planned. I would not have paid

the modest fee to delay my return, nor begun 

the canning again. I’d have gone to the airport, 

still believing that summer intact and secure 

in its sealed jars would land on my porch 

after my own return. There’d have been no return

then: no divine dispensation, no lost lynchpin 

reversing the chain of causation so that this time 

the rider was saved—I’d have made that plane.

To the Sonnet

I want to kiss you deeply on the mouth, 

son of Orpheus, even as one hand

twists my knife in your soft parts below

and the other finds the rock to bash in 

your brains. I want to know what remains 

after you’re torn trunk from limb, octets 

and sestets subsumed in a great humming 

chant of feminine rhyme, or no rhyme. 

I want to deconstruct space and time 

within your strict frame—and also, you. 

While your head floats downriver, is it true

you’ll continue to sing? I’d like that, each rag 

of flesh blooming its own red mouth, your lyre 

wind-strummed—at last—into telling the truth.