Miss Meghan, Fashion Advice

September 11, 2003

and so. i stood down at the corner of the site today. there is now an official-looking gate with locks, built sturdily in the concrete. no falling apart fences or debris. the sky as blue as it was that day, that whole week really. remember the gorgeous indian summer we had that month, the only thing marring the landscape was the plume of smoke wafting over downtown, the acrid smell.

i stood at the corner today and listened to the names being read. the bare-bones of letters and syllables being said out loud over a pockmark in the ground. a visceral tribute, the only thing you can do that makes sense really. to say names out loud, in a sacred spot.

i wanted to wait and hear erica's name, but van acker would have kept me too long for work started soon. so i listened to the a's and i envisioned erica's throaty laugh, how she seemed to know all there was to know in the world. wise woman. i looked up at the sky again, around me at the english bobbies who had come to pay respects, at the traders in their silence and the office workers in their quiet tear-stains, wondered how, if she made it all the way down, why she didn't make it home?