This poem appeared in the 9-11 anthology An Eye for an Eye Makes The Whole World Blind published by Regent Press available on Amazon.
Thanksgiving Eve, 2001
Today
I sort ruin,
lifting shards of concrete and shovels of rubble
picking up a bracelet attached to an arm attached to
nothing
which I carefully – reverently – place in a bag with a label
then pass to Mike
(who has a brother we hope to find)
who marches it to the refrigerated truck
waiting a block away.
Tomorrow
when they make me stay home,
before
I sit with my family
at the long table
heavy with turkey and stuffing and cranberries and mashed potatoes and gravy and
three types of pumpkin pie
where I will pretend to stuff myself while
distantly catching up on the lives of my sister’s family
who visits only every other year,
and before
going through the motions of chortling
with my brothers for the thousandth time about
the night we and four of the Stopich boys picked up
Mrs. Delanko’s VW Beetle and
set it on her front porch because she wouldn’t let
her daughter Amanda
go out with the remaining Stopich boy,
after which
I will retire to the family room to watch football and
eventually nod off
to be later awakened to say goodbyes and
dry dishes and
put kids to bed
then myself
to lay awake until the 5:00 alarm lets me
put on my digging clothes
and go back,
before all that
I’ll lead the grace.
I can’t imagine where I will begin.
F. John Sharp 