Everything Is Normal Now
September 2002

Cloudscape at Sunset (Photo by Malcolm Farley)

See the jet streaking across Manhattan’s melancholia?
Doesn’t it spice the end-of-day sky
with a pinch of fear?  Who’s behind or inside
that silver bullet?  Picture, instead, a giant magic marker

inscribing a vapor of coral and peach
the setting sun ignites.  The plane disappears.
Its smoky trail frays and fades.  You
notice a tough-looking guy who stares at it, just like you.

He looks haunted, jittery.  So, stop pretending
everything is normal now.  If, like a child,
you trace the ruins of that turbulence with your finger—
the severed thunderheads and blood-red clots

of cloud; the horizon’s fiery, fanatical eye—it’s okay.
Cry openly, for no clear reason, in the middle of a crowd.

To hear Malcolm Farley read his poem, “Everything Is Normal Now,” click on the audio icon below.

* Click here to read, “With Blue Uncertain Stumbling Buzz,” another poem about 9/11 by Malcolm Farley