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“The last leaf that is going to fall has fallen.” – Wallace Stevens

For ninety-nine days the fires burned. There is no
symmetry to anything now, but the reconstruction
has begun, one solitary steel beam raised upright
yesterday. See how rickety the blue sky is, our cold,
helium gusts of speech pushing up and up from the sidewalks,
the streets, the crowded corners, arching the wind over us,
the molten stories of six summers cooling finally into myth.
We have sewn shut the horizon line, built a network of nerves
threaded through with red, pulled so tight by planes bellowing
into buildings that even hanging out the windows for air,
one last phone call to those you love, could not save your life,
this thread of feathers torn from the skyline billowing hotly
from the 104th floor, into the consolation of space, saying
hold hands, jump into the sky, in ten seconds I will catch you there.