The Window, at the Moment of Flame

By Alicia Ostriker

And all this while I have been playing with toys
A toy power station a toy automobile a house of blocks

And all this while far off in other lands
Thousands and thousands, millions and millions—

You know—you see the pictures
Women carrying their bony infants

Men sobbing over graves
Buildings sculpted by explosion

Earth wasted bare and rotten—
And all this while I have been shopping, I have

Been let us say free
And do they hate me for it

Do they hate me
                            From Poetry After 9-11: An Anthology of New York Poets

                            last year's post: How to write a poem after September 11th