~ we will be out of town for the anniversary that occurs tomorrow. though it is still not time to see it pass without acknowledgment, we find that the prospects for our country’s political future are too dire to allow for detached melancholy at this time. so instead we will share with you a figurative image which for us has been a warm memory for the past three years, one of the few we can still remember as an unqualified pride in america:

you are in an impromptu blood donor line on the plaza before new york’s city hall, waiting with the only other b-pos blood donors, a black man and an indian woman. the man asks asks, “where are the cameras now?” as you gaze across the plaza and see helmeted construction workers helping doctors and nurses climb into the back of a scorched dump truck, preparing to drive back to the world trade center. silently, you are pleased that there are no cameras.

public response: