This poem has nothing to do with 9/11.

There are no planes or denunciations in it, nothing combustible, no flags or falling bodies, no twisted I-beams or pacifist cris de coeur. In this poem, we are eating soup, & the radio is off as it always is during meals. Nobody calls to tell us to tune in. We are for the most part ignoring the extraordinary events taking place all around us in field & woodlot, in the air & soil & water from which we are knit. The soup is hot, & so good. I dip my bread in it, extending its dominion. When the bread is gone, I lift the bowl to my lips & slurp as I learned to do years ago in Japan. My father will wash the dishes. We will each slice open & remove the inedible stone from a dead-ripe peach.