This Time
 

My sister survived September 11th.
She was a temp a block away
from the World Trade Center.
 
The police evacuated her building.
When she reached the street, she headed
uptown with the frantic crowds.
 
I called her cell phone that day,
relieved that no one could get through. 
Usually I don’t hear from her;
 
When I call she lets the phone ring.
Once I drove into the city to check on her.
I unlocked the door; she was in her
 
nightgown, smoking in the glow of the
television. But this time she called.
She wanted to tell me how people huddled
 
together, held hands, shared cabs;
she wanted to tell me that she was
alive and on her way home.
 
 



Missing


As we unlock each lock of my sister’s
apartment, pull away yellow police tape,
push open the door — we see newspapers 
stacked to the window sills, piles of CD’s 
still in cellophane, umbrellas, pocketbooks, 
cabinets crammed with serving pieces, sofas 
swollen with pillows, the coffee table con-
cealed by months of magazines, only slivers 
of floor space. In the bedroom, dresser
drawers stuffed with clothes — still with
tags. Collections of excess — more than she
needed, less than she wanted.  I can leave it 
all, but what haunts me is the diamond — my
mother’s engagement ring.  After our parents’ 
were gone, my sister was adamant that she
keep it. And here I am trying to find it in all 
of this. I almost give up; then on the closet 
floor I spot the black canvas bag she carried 
everywhere.  I step over mounds of shoes
and boots, unzip the bag, search until I feel 
the sharp prongs of an empty setting.  Had it
jiggled loose?  Did she sell it for rent? What
was her plan in those last desperate days?





The Mustang Girls Sit Shiva


The four of them and my sister
wore stiff leather jackets, thick

black eyeliner, eyed each other
in the halls; but only after they

passed their drivers’ tests did
they bond.  Each bought a used

Mustang – the fleet spanned
the late sixties: blue Fastback,

red GT, green convertible, 
black Mach I, and my sister’s 

white coupe. The Mustang girls
drove in tandem, parked their

cars side by side, chain smoked
Marlboro Lights. Thirty years 

later I look up from serving coffee
to see four middle aged women

reassemble at my front door, threads
of gray in their hair, eyeliner 

softened with their waistlines. They
greet me awkwardly, move to sit by 

the fireplace; they laugh and hug. 
Elsewhere small talk is heavy like

indigestion, but their reminiscence
of the missing driver floats up. Traces

drift toward me as I circulate — her car
taboos, schemes to get her to come

on time, unreturned phone calls. Their 
voices waver when they speak of

reunions where she never showed — they 
realize they will grow old without her.