We still look up
every time an airplane flies overhead
because it no longer means the same thing.
Two days after the attacks
I walk through midtown Manhattan for the first time.
I have not left my apartment
except to buy food in my neighborhood.
Now here I am
walking through a ghost town
of smiling faces on lampposts
homemade flyers in search of the missing.
I look to the skies
devoid of all airplanes
and see in the faces of those around me
the expectant looks of impending disaster.
These are not tourists,
awed by our skyscrapers
because there are no tourists now.
When the planes return to the skies
it continues to happen.
We still look up
every time an airplane flies overhead
because it no longer means the same thing.
Lindel Hart is a writer, performer, GCC student, and yoga teacher living in Western Massachusetts. His adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein premiered in an abandoned bank building in Greenfield, MA, and was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Scotland) and the Academy of Music (Northampton). See more at lindelhart.com.