chnadler, what is left to say
and i.m sorry about your name

i don't usually proof read, you know.
world trade centers and ignorance and innocence.
my cousin, four and wide eyed,
looked at the fires and thought they were cool.
and i had to admit it looked pretty cool. not like burning a cross or anything, although fire always looks neat.
the way it licks and hurts against the air afraid to touch everything but no where else to go - its very sensual.
i sat on the porch in front of my house smelling the rain breath off the street and remembered the ghost of youth,
though i'm only twenty three, putting on airs for the muses as i sat bored by geology in a class much too small for our imaginations. and i had hoped hoped hoped that someone would blow up my school because i was so bored. and the beauty of america then was that any dream - no matter how undeserving - was a possibility. and i was a boy, wide eyed and huffing "cool" in great puffs of soul in the winter feilds when they dropped bombs on other children a hundred worlds away,
terrified because their parents were terrified; but in love with the explosions - the thematic displays of fire and gravel raining from huge clouds of ash and anger. but that sand has settled at the bottom of the bowl we shook and i realize now that no flame can be lit without burning away our fingerprints.
-------
they set me on fire this thanksgiving, you know.
a present for my dad, born that day in '55, was wrapped too near a candle
and i forgot how to stop and how to drop and how to roll, but
i have to admit that it looked pretty cool. not like a burning cross or anything, this went out in an instant.
when i was twenty (an hour ago) i bought a vase at a silent auction
that was burned in a kiln until it turned green. it fits in the palm of my hand and is just large enough to hold this thought.
this whisper. the sound of your name. -c