Ground zero

And then there was the noise
and the matte grey of the hull
filling our vision,

no space for skies,
only the white dust
remembered.

In New York
the flames had called us
out of our rooms,
out of our lives,

their orange screams and smoke
tugging at our minds.
There were birds, of course,
and the hazy sun:

perhaps the birds
were white, or grey-white
perhaps the sun
was hiding

in terror of the falling
bodies
in agony of the ebbing
lives

we would be unable
to recognise it.
Nothing could distract

from where the ground
ended, our cameras snapping
the towers as they disappeared
into depth and dust

Nothing but the rubble
filling the broken skyline
could convince us, we were
at the edge of the world.