Ezekiel's Daughter

Diary Entry for a Time Traveler

I will tell you

because I want you to understand

who we were.

I was in class when the towers came down.

I came out at our fifteen minute break

saw the news

glanced puzzled outside of the office window

because New Orleans also had a WTC

and then I went back to class.

So did the teacher.

They locked the building to outsiders

but the class went on.

On the days when New Orleans was drowning

I went to the library in Shreveport

to read the news

I competed for laptops carrying electronics news with

the unemployed looking for jobs.

Some of them murmured their

consternation. Some of them tapped their foot

as I sought pictures of my neighborhood.

Listen, I heard that there were people shopping

for groceries in Paris steps away

from where shots rang out.

Perhaps some monsieur ran out for bread for dinner

only to find that he needed it later when

friends stopped by to console him on the death of his wife.

It’s common to talk about Nero fiddling

while Rome burned.  Actually, he was out of town

that day.  He returned to rebuilt the Palatine.

I sit on the ruins that cover his buildings and wonder.

Am I the weeping peasant sifting

the ashes for my parents bones? Am the merchant making

a fortune on concrete that year?

Or am I the woman who sold the tinder to the man with the torch?