THE SHOT ABOVE HIS LEFT EYE

Standing on my third floor almost ten years ago, when I was nine months pregnant with my third child, I questioned everything that I believed was filled with gravity.

When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil. Lao-tzu

The Shot Above His Left Eye

The face of terror was shot in the head and
as each flashing memory oozed from his skull,
an anonymous American face is still dead.

“Obama got Osama” thundered through the crowd,
infused with life and then withdrawn.
On some level, people don’t know what to do.

Cars sit in long lines of traffic continuously honking--
at first in frustration, but eventually in celebration,
New York City, ground zero, ten years later.

The operation that killed Osama bin Laden was
designed to prove he was captured, dead or alive;
on some level, people don’t know what to do.

He was killed by U.S. forces in a mansion north
of Islamabad, Pakistan. An enormously significant
moment in the fight against al Qaeda terrorism.

The mastermind of the worst terrorist
attacks on American soil was killed.
On some level, people don’t know what to do.

On many levels, I don’t know what to do.