Kate,
Should
I have kept on running ?
Should
I have stayed on that train ?
I
think not but how can one really read the rocks ?
When
we found each other, I felt relief even though it meant facing his
frustration for not noticing that he wasn't behind me when I caught the
train door.
As it
pulled from the station, his hand opened, emphatic, with eyes so wide
in icy disbelief.
He
carried it with him until we couldn't move forward anymore.
Earlier,
I called my father to wish him a happy birthday. He asked me what I was
doing that day.
I told
him I was going to run some errands, and stay in. It was too windy, so
gray. That's February for you. It was the 15th.
After
I hung up, he told me he couldn't understand why I couldn't tell
my father that I was going to protest in a rally against the war today.
He was
never one to confront, but always ready to lay me down on a thin blue
atmosphere and tell me when I was cowering.
But
who put who on that glass slab ?
Who
said, 'Slice me up, chief !' ?
I
wanted to be there more than he did.
We
made it to Third Ave., and the crowd got too big to stay on the
sidewalks, and filtered into the street.
We all
stopped traffic.
A
woman lay atop a magazine kiosk taking photographs.
Older
ladies chastised police officers on their poor attitude.
We
were crowded but proud and then a man came running towards us.
We
stepped back just in time for him to land at our feet.
He was
yelling, “I didn't do anything.”
The
people behind us crowded around our backs as five cops piled on top of
him and broke out their night sticks to restrain him and push us away.
He
wanted to get closer, and I wanted to get away.
I was
afraid that someone would try to jump in. I don't trust them, but I
didn't trust us, either.
We
were too close to tensions that were percolating.
He
pushed forward and all I could do was grab his scarf, and he pushed me
off of him.
My
yells for him to stop bled into the cries of a woman that kept
screaming, “Take pictures.”
Troops
of cops closed in on all of us.
They
were riding horses from all ends.
It
took them hours to break up the crowd.
We
were wedged into a corporate square.
I
hadn't worn enough layers, and the wind ate through me.
Eventually,
we found warmth, and watched the news and how the world was in a state
of protest.
A
father in New York protested his son being involved in this war.
We
were cold and spent. Drained by the absence we were left with.
What
could be done to remove it ?
Is
there an act that can be caught, (like a virus) ?
I have
no thoughts (no hope) to a realistic aftermath.
The
immediate made an enormous act seem as obstructive as the first
raindrop to ever hit your nose.
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