UAB Digital Commons (Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham)

Marlin, Jane-Marie

Astarte 
Volume 6 Article 34 
1999 
Home 
Jane-Marie Marlin 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Marlin, Jane-Marie (1999) "Home," Astarte: Vol. 6, Article 34. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/astarte/vol6/iss1999/34 
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provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
home 
you trace the length of my spine 
to where it dips to the small of my back, 
cradle me the way a father might, 
rocking, 
moving quietly through my 
corridors 
opening tiny windows 
wiping clean the cloudy glass with a palm 
entering a place only you know 
where fears are released like parachutes 
liberated and steady 
- jane-marie marlin 
62 
1
Marlin: Home
Published by UAB Digital Commons, 1999


English

Home

Dameron, Melissa

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 01 Article 12 
Rachel 
Melissa Dameron 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Dameron, Melissa () "Rachel," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 01, Article 12. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol01/iss2001/12 
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provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Melissa Dameron 
Rachel 
When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, 
she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, "Give me 
children, or I will die!" Genes is 30:1 
The first seven years 
I put myself in his sight while he moves sheep. 
He pulls his fingers 
through their curls, 
urges their heads . 
He is low to them, 
crouching eye to eye. 
He speaks in their ears, 
his hair mixes in their coats. 
The ewes come to his call, are still. 
He puts his palms 
to their heavy bellies . 
At the sun's highest point, 
I take him thick dates and bread . 
I wear blue, leave my hair long, 
stand away from him. 
He keeps his eyes on my face. 
I follow each date to his lips. 
After the next seven, 
I am his second. 
I s tay in my tent 
away from the hills; 
I cannot stand the heavy ewes. 
I no longer eat dates. 
19 
Each night my eyes stay wide, 
like the moon that finds me each month. 
My fingers run the lines of my ribs, 
counting one side, 
then the other. 
My maid Bilhah stands behind me today, 
combs my hair. 
Her heavy breasts shift 
with the combing. 
Her round stomach pushes into my shoulder. 
I see Jacob's hands on her, 
follow his fingers 
over her nipples, 
her shoulder, waist, 
his legs between hers, 
releasing. 
I pull her hands from my hair. 
The comb drops, cracks. 
Leah's babies come in a flow, 
one, and then many. 
I am her back at each birth, 
wiping her face and chest 
with oils and herbs. 
Her brown babies, arrive the same 
in a slip. 
I must hold them all, pass them 
to the other women. 
After the sixth, 
when the again-mother sleeps 
and all the tents are silent, 
I take the birthing sheets 
to the sheep hills. 
20 
Under my moon 
I lay face down on the damp cloth, 
pushing my middle into the stains. 
I cut six slices into my left arm, 
smear my cheeks, 
hold the bloody palms up 
to the black night. 
21 


Rachel

Williams, Rynn

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 01 Article 13 
Water Witch 
Rynn Williams 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Williams, Rynn () "Water Witch," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 01, Article 13. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol01/iss2001/13 
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provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Rynn Williams 
Water Witch 
Maybe working this bar isn't the answer-
but there is nothing burnished as deeply 
as this wood, there is nothing sweeter 
than the incense of Marlboros, nothing 
as sure as the red vinyl booths. 
Who can explain the empathy of a grilled cheese 
and a Bud left waiting at a corner stool 
for two-and-a-half hours while a young man 
pounds his fist into plaster by the payphone? 
My grandmother was a water witch. 
Ranchers would hire her, she'd drive 
to their land, find a forked green stick, 
hold a prong in each hand and walk with it 
thrust in front of her, taut as a lightening bolt. 
Until something deep in the earth pulled it down. 
22 


Water Witch

Gage, Diane

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 01 Article 19 
Owls 
Diane Gage 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
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Gage, Diane () "Owls," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 01, Article 19. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol01/iss2001/19 
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provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Diane Gage 
Owls 
can lay feathers delicately on air 
and drift or dive like deadly snowflakes, 
inestimable messengers of silence, 
the ones who want always to know 
again and again, your name 
and the names of everyone, 
of every living thing. 
Somewhere two big golden eyes 
shine like headlamps of an engine rushing 
inexorably toward that mysterious quiet collision 
you pretend every day, all day, 
will never arrive. Meanwhile, 
mortal catastrophe tosses you nightly 
from dream to nightmare and back 
to the beach of morning 
where you rub sand from the corners 
of your little pink eyes, reaching immediately 
for radio, newspaper, TV, food, anything-
stuffing your orifices full of forgetting. 
Meanwhile, machete, talon, virus, scythe, 
continue harvesting neighbor and stranger, 
lover and enemy alike, smothering your world 
with white pockets of absence. 
You tunnel more deeply into your habits, 
pulling old comforts up around your noisy ears. 
What was your name again? 
Is someone calling your name? 
30 


Owls

Zeidenstein, Sondra

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 6 
Still, Tilla 
Sondra Zeidenstein 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
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Zeidenstein, Sondra () "Still, Tilla," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 6. 
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Sondra Zeidenstein 
STILL, TILLA 
It's still Tilla I want to write about-
the thin white nightgown she wears in the hospital, smocked, 
with embroidered blue flowers at the neckline, 
sheer, only a faint suggestion of torso and thighs 
when she makes the short walk to the sun room and back, 
leaning on me with weightless grace. 
I'm taller than she, bulky compared to her, I realize now, 
though I've known her for thirteen summers 
in one flowered bathing suit after another 
shirred across the belly, skirted to hide soft thighs. 
She's not able to walk for long. 
I pour her cup after cup of cool water, 
she holds onto the stuffed brown bear her son brought her, 
places its arms around her neck. 
Like a hug, she smiles. 
Nothing new here. Nothing unusual. 
Her skin is white. Her lips are parched, 
her eyes are green, green and they never leave my eyes 
for the hours we talk about her illness, the marriage, her sons, my son 
and always her hand and mine are pressed to each other, 
sealing in heat, as if our love lives there in the dark, 
our friendship nothing out of the ordinary 
except for our long slow swims across the pond every summer. 
Nothing special. Unless this is the last visit, 
last touch, last pinkening of freckled cheeks. 
When this is over, she says, 
a dancer's expressive wrist dismissing the ugly, shiny room, 
and things settle down, we'll have you over for drinks. 
Just call, I say. We'll be there. Too eager. 
This is the third time I've written about our visit, 
as if poking under the shadow of leaves for hidden fruit: 
her eager neck, her narrow cared-for feet 
and the beige criss-crossed leather slippers she slipped them into. 
9 
• 


Still, Tilla

Dickinson, Stephanie

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 9 
Stillbirth 
Stephanie Dickinson 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Dickinson, Stephanie () "Stillbirth," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 9. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol02/iss2002/9 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Stephanie Dickinson 
STILLBIRTH 
A string of Model-Ts lurch on the gravel road 
tottering to a stop at Rogers Grove. 
They don't get to nose the just cut hay 
like us walkers behind the undertaker's mule do. 
The iron-wheeled wagon kicks up dust. 
I carry an orange swarm of ditch lilies that draws 
the wasps the entire three-quarter mile. The hole is 
already dug so Pa shoulders the coffin over 
and I lay in lilies around my sister's face-
not much bigger than a boiled new potato. 
Ma tucks in corn husks, a Ball jar of milk, 
2 slices of angel food cake wrapped in Christmas paper. 
Baby never drew breath but once I felt her 
under Ma's apron, heart like a caught moth. 
12 


Stillbirth

Rekdal, Paisley

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 17 
The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee 
Paisley Rekdal 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
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Rekdal, Paisley () "The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 17. 
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This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Paisley Rekdal 
THE NIGHT MY MOTHER MET BRUCE LEE 
China smokes under a tree. That's how low 
mist settles in this picture, bad brush painting 
where silver maids crouch like silver wolves 
wailing for a man who'll come 
from the moon. There are dishes. In the restaurant 
my mother loads up red tubs 
of spilled noodles, shuffles towards the one white 
customer who watches. You know the story 
behind that painting? My mother doesn't. 
The man's face falls, a little florid, too 
open like the jar of her mother's pastel 
peonies so enormous with want, she can't 
believe these are flowers her own mother 
displays on waxed tabletops, petals arranged 
in shredded pleats as if the flower were swelling 
in its own desire. She doesn't know anything, 
my mother: not the fat and dirty carp in its tank, 
what the inscrutable phoenix rises out of. 
Autumn leaves are falling like rain is a poem which never 
penetrates the bell-shaped, woolen skirt hand-
sewn thankfully sans poodle, sans glitter peony, 
rough as her nails which glisten only 
when varnished with the grease of someone else's leftovers. 
All my neighbors are barbarians and you, 
you are a thousand miles away is a tune 
from a distinctly different planet 
where radio towers do not thrum with 
Buddy Holly, mothers never chide in strange 
tongues. My mother has a smile trained 
to kindle nebula, hurl satellites into space. 
No, she doesn't have the willowy thighs of any 
of the seven maids hanging in their one frame, 
the bangs of Veronica Lake. 
22 -
Now the newest busboy erupts 
out of the back kitchen, Vesuvian, a smatter 
of duck fat and ash. 
"I come from Hong Kong from real 
Chinese," he told my mother. Posed 
with martial vigilance, scared the cook, 
cut his thumb on a knife blade. Kung 
Fooey everyone at the restaurant 
calls him who wields his shoulders like pickaxes 
and leers at the waitresses. I hate that 
son of a bitch, mumbles the cashier. 
The busboy mugs: a film star 
by the fire escape. 
What I wouldn't do to be famous, my mother thinks. 
The answer's nothing. My mother will do 
nothing to be famous. Although my neighbors 
are all barbarians and you, you are a thousand 
miles away, there are always 
two cups at my table a song 
on the restaurant tape drones mysteriously. 
Customers file past my mother: a prop 
in the dullest film of all time. She'll buy 
a cashmere sweater in pink tonight, 
take herself to the pictures on Sunday. At sixteen, 
my mother thinks it's what 
she's supposed to want. She thinks 
it's going to make her happy. 
23 
ID 


The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee

Cooper-Fratik, Julie

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 35 
Statues 
Julie Cooper-Fratik 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Cooper-Fratik, Julie () "Statues," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 35. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol02/iss2002/35 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Julie Cooper-Fratrik 
STATUES 
Chester (1949) 
the daughter: 
We play at dusk on the streets of Chester, scatter torn gum 
wrappers in cool gutters after an evening shower. Mornings, we 
skate over rough, red sidewalks, our ball-bearings click-clacking 
brick to brick like miniature trains. We strain to hear the 
engine's muffled call, as Uncle Jim, eight years before, had lis-
tened from New Guinea for the sound, and whisper along the 
fence how James Hazel's brother had died on these tracks a 
month before. We try to pretend we don't remember the rhyme 
we all know: 
Little Willie on the tracks, 
Heard the engine squeal; 
Now the engine's coming back. 
They're scraping Willie off the wheel. 
Each morning, Mrs. Boulden, our landlady, waters the porch 
geraniums and the stiff, spidery cleome in narrow beds between 
the tight houses. At night, we gather Japanese beetles, green 
and gold, that cling to the sticky cleome, fill our jars to hum-
ming. We drift as shadows in the close backyards, call to each 
other through the fence: 
Red Rover, 
Red Rover, 
I dare red 
to come over. 
Rapt in our game, we hurry past our lengthening shadows, 
until bending and swaying towards us, uninvited guests, they 
shoo us gently home. 
63 -
Cooper-Fratrik 
I run upstairs from the screened-in porch where our landlady 
has been whispering secrets of strange deaths to tell my mother 
that Mrs. Moore next door has no sense of smell. That night 
before bed, I wrap the scissors carefully in a flowered dish 
towel, and hide them as I always do. Downstairs, where you 
couldn't see beyond porch windows for straggly dry geraniums 
in red clay pots, I listen for the sound of Mrs. Boulden, hear the 
heavy back and forth shuffling of her slippered feet on the 
linoleum, imagine that she and her plants ooze an invisible poi-
son into the night air, making it hard for me to catch my breath. 
Next day, I slide the heavy iron back and forth over the 
scorched, paper-thin sheet covering the wooden board, over the 
starched white blouses of our school uniforms- collars round 
as fear, and plastic buttons that leave a smell for days if you 
iron over them. I smooth out wrinkles and sins, thoughts of 
scissors safely hidden. I force my arm back and forth across the 
scorched cloth, across Mrs. B's exposed spine. I smooth out the 
knowledge that rises daily: that Mrs. Boulden hates children, 
deliberately hides cockroach eggs to hatch in the clean school 
underwear our mother lays out for us: each night, her slender 
fingers smoothing lace, her dark hair hiding her face as she 
bends forward to the task-the panties pure and white as God, 
undershirts and ruffled socks-her hands lingering over each 
pile as though through touch, through the slow act of nightly 
folding, she could overcome the city's grime, the husband's 
unemployment, her children's fears, her own. Now, from the 
dimly-lighted street lamps, I see small shapes of children skip-
ping toward the house, and hear their voices call me to the 
game: 
Red Rover 
Red Rover 
I dare black 
to come over. 
Interpretation of Dreams 
the daughter: 
the mother: 
64 
poernmemoirstory 
I dreamed of myriad silver coins lying shiny in the ditches 
of the lanes I walked. I bent and swayed toward them (it was so 
easy then), gathering the dreamed riches in my arms. Or there 
were paper dolls with red silk dresses and softly-feathered hats 
requiring extra scissor cuts. I dreamed a whole carry-old-bag, 
filled to overflowing with the paper and cardboard finery. 
"Carry-old-bag" -that was what we called it then-the 
large brown paper shopping bag with twine handles that we 
had saved from John Wanamaker's in Philidelphia where my 
mother took us once a year, at Christmastime. To gaze shyly at 
the great golden eagle who guarded the store's entrance. To lis-
ten to the carols that told of the birth of him who was poorer 
than we. 
I thought he must have been the eagle's gift, this Jesus: that 
the sleek, vast bird had flown heavily through the autumn sky, 
with the baby gripped in his beak, and come by chance to this 
department store. I woke to find no dolls, no coins. The awful 
knot in my stomach not only for myself but for my mother too, 
who would have loved the graceful cardboard dolls. And with 
the coins, she might have bought a feathered hat like theirs, 
with sequins and a veil, to wear to Mass. 
I dreamed the dolls till I was ten, the coins another ten. My 
dreams are still of ditches, but they contain no coins. And I am 
never walking. I drive along the edges now. My brakes are 
never sure. 
Desire 
the daughter: 
Even our vehicles were piecemeal then: in '52, a dark blue 
Crosley, the first car my father had ever driven, though he lied 
to the gentleman farmer who took him on that spring. 
But we were proud-on Saturdays, after putting the hens to 
roost-driving to town like the others, new to this country life. 
Down the Windybush we sped to New Hope and Lambertville, 
nutshell towns on either bank of the quiescent Delaware where 
streets were lined with shops of an-tee-ques, the first time I had 
seen the word. 
65 
Cooper-Fratrik 
This shopping for provisions was deadly serious business, 
our only recreation. Except for the afternoon the farmer's pigs 
escaped and headed for the pool. For days, we mulled it over. 
Throughout that eleventh summer, I sat on the wooden cel-
lar door, stripped to the waist. I face the main house, hoping 
against hope that Charlie, the farmer's son-seventeen, resplen-
dent, and from a lifestyle that even in my later years would not 
cohere (although I too said dinner instead of supper, expectorate 
for spit)-would lift his suntanned arm and call me to come ride 
with him the chestnut mare I sometimes helped my father to 
feed. That fall we traded up: a Plymouth, '48. Charlie entered 
Yale. 
Decrescendo 
the mother: 
She was the more silent partner of a mostly silent pair. And 
yet, she was a connoisseur of language, and read voraciously. 
She slipped into my hands when I was barely eight years old 
the five versions of the mysterious Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 
blue leather binding, with twelve drawings in color by Blanche 
McManus. For the sound, for the words, she said. Before that, 
there were nursery rhymes: the "Here we go 'round the mulber-
ry bush,"' the "Wynken, Blynken and Nod" of Eugene Field. 
And there were lullabies taught to her by her mother whose 
own mother had brought them, by boat, from County Kerry. 
Later, much later, came Steinbeck's Rose of Sharon and "Miss 
Mousie, will you marry me?" 
My father's words, when he deigned to speak, which some-
times was not for weeks at a time, were polysyllabic and full of 
underlying rage---a storm drain ready to burst, a forerunner of 
darkness- and served to silence my mother even further. 
Indeed, to silence us all. 
She wrote to me only once in her life---a letter of fewer than 
two hundred words-from Denver, where she had gone to visit 
my youngest sister after the birth of her first child. It was my 
mother's first and only flight. "I have always loved the earth 
so," she wrote. "I have always loved the earth." This mother 
66 
poemmemoirstory 
who had hardly ever left the silence of the house. Who didn't 
come outside to play with us at Statues, or, later, after we had 
moved to the farm, to pick the wildflowers that grew along the 
stream. Who kept her thoughts, like secrets, and her laughter 
hidden. 
But I remembered then, how one summer evening when a 
thunderstorm was brewing, she had slipped out of her shoes 
and moved silently from the kitchen, first to the porch, then out 
into the yard, her bare feet sweeping across the blowing grass, 
her hair pulled loose from its bun. A dark silhouette, mysterious 
and other, she was illuminated briefly by a flash of lightning. 
Stopped like a goddess in her tracks. Beautiful and still. Then, 
almost skipping, she moved to the center of the lawn, lifted the 
corners of her apron shyly, and her face, to catch each raindrop 
as it fell. 
This Is the House that Jack Built 
the sister: 
Step on a crack, 
Break your mother's back. 
Standing stiffly on her toes and spinning three times round 
to touch the ground, my sister never missed a crack 
once 
twice 
three times 
at each end of the block in the cities and suburbs of childhood, 
her fingers probed each fissure until they bled. Here is the crack 
in the door at night-the grave silhouette on the threshold, he 
enters while the others sleep (where have they gone, the others? 
67 
• 
Cooper-Fratrik 
it is dark); here in this crack the innocence that must be hidden 
somewhere-up and down the weary streets of Chester where 
mornings we sped over rough red sidewalks, our skates click-
clacking brick to brick; Ridley Park; the beautiful magnolia 
where lullabies streamed at dusk from curtained windows: 
Lullaby and goodnight 
With roses bedight 
who sang the lullabies? to whom? (goodnight mother, come 
back, come back.) 
turn around 
bend down 
touch the 
ground: 
she twirled and stomped at every crevice, prying its jagged 
edges open as though they were petals of four o' clocks that 
would cradle her beneath their cool pastel cups, their faces 
open to the night; and in the morning, weary, would close tight-
ly once again with her inside. Whole. Motionless. At last. 
Statues 
the daughter: 
Because we were too soft, too easy, too eager, we changed 
the name to "Shadows." And we were swung 'round in the 
evenings, circled by arms we don't remember; rapt as dervish-
es, we twirled. Our skirts flew up, our shadows lengthened, 
panties showed a little, and the sun refused to join us but slid 
bright and brighter, as we spun round its dying flame, toward 
the east where boys and girls who'd left their dark silhouettes 
behind them in the doorways raised thin elbows toward the 
chirping in the lonely bushes to capture grasshoppers, lost syl-
lables of childhood, inside their paper lanterns: James West, 
Marjorie Little, Mary Anne Bruno, I call out to you: 
because we were too soft, too easy, too eager, we change the 
name to Shadows but pretend all the same: don't move. Don't 
68 
poemmemoirstory 
make a sound. Stay just as you are. Just as you land. The voice 
behind the arms is more insistent: don't blink an eye or bend a 
finger. You must be someone. Something. 
I would be Hesperus, evening, come in the interstices 
between the sun's eclipse and the street lamps' misty halo. 
Hesperus. Come to light the children's paths: the difficult paths 
between shadow and shadow, now and then, statue and statue. 
I would be silent, still. I wouldn't move a muscle. But inside my 
rib cage, my child's fist of a heart would flutter like a fledgling 
robin: I would be something. Someone. 
Japanese beetles, in their lonely phosphorescence, clung to 
the sticky cleome beyond the crooked hedgerow and Mrs. 
Boulden shuffled along her porch in tired slippers to water sun-
less, dry geraniums in red clay pots and Mrs. Moore upstairs 
had lost her sense of smell and bees lazed in the hollow cheeks 
of hollyhocks and children chased fireflies' penumbras through 
the nascent dark and filled their jars to humming and called to 
each other through the fence: 
Red Rover, Red Rover, 
I dare black to come over. 
Behind the wooden screen doors with their rusting hinges, 
our mothers tried to break the spell, called us by our Christian 
names: where are you Marjorie Mary Anne and James? Marjorie 
Mary Anne and James until all of the others, one by one, 
unwound their tired muscles, resumed their voices, first as 
hoarse whispers, then joyful shouts, glad at last to have 
regained their original shapes: girls and boys, after all, playing 
at a game. 
But I am slight, a mere suggestion. I haven't blinked an eye 
or crooked a finger. I haven't moved a muscle. And no one-not 
you, James West, nor you, Mary Anne, or Marjorie-can see me 
now; can feel my heart still beating in its fragile cage, my white 
bones, hollow as a bird's, filling with the essential dark, begin-
ning to rise and separate, spreading like stars in the summer 
sky. 
69 


Statues

Johnson-Oberwanowicz, Nancy

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 37 
A Day in September 
Nancy Johnson-Oberwanowicz 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
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Johnson-Oberwanowicz, Nancy () "A Day in September," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 37. 
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This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Nancy Johnson-Oberwanowicz 
A DAY IN SEPTEMBER 
It was supposed to be a great day. My mother and cousin 
were visiting me from Northeastern Ohio, where I was born 
and raised. I was going to work and my family was going to 
sightsee. We were going to meet at lunch, then attend a 
Broadway show. The day didn't come close to what we expect-
ed. 
We were running a little late that Tuesday morning. My 
daughter would not stop whining and begged to come with us, 
as we were headed for a fun day. Thank God for her whining. 
We ended up missing my normal bus and had to take a later 
one, which put us in New York City around 8:00 a.m. My moth-
er had a fractured foot from a previous injury and wore a sup-
port device. She realized she needed thicker socks, so we had to 
make a stop in Century 21, a department store directly across 
from the World Trade Center complex. Another stop was made 
in the lobby of WTC 2 at the security desk, which was put in 
place after the terrorist bombings of 1993. Everyone had to have 
the name of someone that they were visiting in the building and 
a valid picture ID. A picture was then taken of the visitor and 
placed on a plastic pass for the day. My mom and my cousin 
have a souvenir of that day with their picture on it-September 
11, 2001. 
We finally got into my office on the 48th floor of WTC Tower 
Two around 8:20 a.m. I introduced my mom and cousin to my 
co-workers and was telling them how to get to Ellis Island and 
a nearby donut shop, when the first airplane hit Tower One. 
The lights flickered, the building shook, and we saw chunks of 
concrete the size of tires, flaming objects, and tremendous 
amounts of paper flying past our windows. Someone yelled, 
"what the HELL was that?" I remember yelling to my mom and 
cousin to stay by my desk, then ran to the west-side of my 
office that faced the Statue of Liberty to look out the windows. 
Another person screamed to stay away from the windows, as 
we did not know what had happened yet. A normally quiet co-
worker wasted no time in gathering all employees to the center 
of the office away from the windows. I ran to the other end of 
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the office where there were still employees looking out at the 
falling debris. They did not hear what was being said and I 
yelled to them that they must get away from the windows and 
grab their belongings as we were evacuating. I told my mom 
and cousin we would take the inner stairwell and proceeded 
with the rest of my co-workers. As soon as we opened our front 
door to the corridor, there was an intense smell of gas, one that 
you could almost taste. It was jet fuel, but we were not aware of 
that at the time. 
I was so scared for my mother. She had turned white as a 
sheet and could not walk quickly with her fractured ankle. We 
made our way slowly down the yellow stairwell with my mom 
supported between my cousin and me. At times we had to 
move over so others could get around us, but all were orderly 
and quiet. We heard from someone who had entered the stairs 
at a lower floor that Tower One had been hit by a small aircraft. 
This had happened before and wasn't cause for worry. After we 
had made it down about 15 floors, my mom started to feel faint. 
I tried to encourage her and give her strength. I had a bad feel-
ing in my stomach that we were in grave danger. We managed 
to walk down to the 29th floor and heard a public service 
announcement saying, "Building Two is stable. An airplane has 
hit Tower One, but we are stable. You may return to your 
offices." I remember looking at my mom and cousin and telling 
them that there was no way we were going back. Everyone 
knows that you are supposed to get out of a building filled with 
gas fumes. There were people that did go back. Since we 
assumed we were okay, I told my mom that we would go down 
the rest of the way on an elevator. The 27th floor was a re-entry 
station, so we managed our way down to the ground floor on a 
shaky elevator. 
Security directed us to move quickly from the street level of 
Tower Two through the concourse under the complex. A quick 
glance out the glass doors showed a street filled with bright 
orange fire and paper. We were shuffled towards an exit on the 
Liberty Street side of the concourse. I told my mom and cousin 
that I had to stop and make a phone call so that I could let my 
mother-in-law, who was watching my two children at home, 
know that if she heard something on TV, we were okay. Thank 
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Johnson-Oberwanowicz 
God I made that phone call. My daughter Hope answered the 
phone and wanted to know what was wrong because I sounded 
funny. I asked her to please get Grandma, as I had something 
important to tell her. I don't recall speaking to my mother-in-
law, because the second plane hit Tower Two as I was on the 
phone. It hit about 64 floors above us on the side of the building 
where we would have made our exit several minutes earlier. 
Fire and debris were piling up outside the glass doors from 
above and people turned and stampeded back the way we had 
come. Pandemonium then hit as dark gray smoke started pour-
ing through the vents and people started screaming and run-
ning. I pushed my mom and cousin against the wall to my right 
so they would not be trampled. We were herded by security 
through the mall area to the opposite side of the concourse, and 
up an escalator to the plaza level outside. Police steered us 
under eaves so that falling debris would not hit us. A female 
police officer was crying as she worked and told us not to look, 
to stop walking and run as fast as we could. 
I had to look. It will be something that will stay in my 
memory forever. There were three to four-foot chunks of con-
crete everywhere and things burning, much like a movie scene 
of the end of time. I looked up and I cried. My building, the one 
we had escaped from less than 10 minutes before, was in 
flames . Huge balls of fire were coming out of a gaping hole, and 
people were screaming and crying. 
I told my mother and cousin that we had to get away as 
quickly as we could, heading east. We got a block away and 
passed by a poor man lying in the street who had been hit in 
the head by debris, whose life was running away from him in 
puddles down the street. The paramedics could do nothing, and 
officers were telling us not to look, just to keep moving. My 
mom needed to sit down. I pushed her for another block and 
found a place for her to sit inside an office building. It hit me 
then that I had not seen my best friend from work after we got 
outside, and I felt a sudden urge to find her. I looked up and 
saw her passing by the floor level window outside the building 
with two other co-workers. I ran out the door and started 
screaming her name. We hugged and went back for my mom 
and cousin. My friend talked me into getting on a subway 
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towards midtown, as it was the only way we could get out of 
lower Manhattan. I don't like riding the subway on a good day, 
and that day was no exception. Thank God she forced me. We 
were on the last train to run, and were underground when my 
building collapsed. We soon parted company, and my mother, 
cousin, and I made it to 23ro Street before the train shut down. I 
begged a man in a small food store to use his phone. I had been 
trying to use my cell phone and public phones on the street to 
no avail. The only number I was able to reach was our office in 
Long Island where I reached my boss. He was extremely happy 
to hear from me, and promised to make phone calls to my fami-
ly to let them know we were safe. This was about 10:30 a.m. 
I don't remember a lot after this, but I do remember being 
cold on that warm, sunny September day. We made our way to 
34th Street, home of the famous Macy's. They have a cafeteria 
where we were able to sit and relax, and try to figure out how 
we would get back to my house in New Jersey. We did not 
make it home that day, as there were no trains or buses running, 
and all tunnels and bridges were closed. I tried phoning a co-
worker who lives in Manhattan, and was not able to reach 
her-I must have left ten messages, the last ones while crying. 
As we got to Times Square, we saw crowds of people looking 
up at the large screens showing live coverage. It was then that 
we learned we had survived a terrorist attack, and that the 
world-famous Twin Towers of the World Trade Center no 
longer existed. 
We walked for six hours that day. Our final stop was the 
Waldorf-Astoria on 49 th Street, who had three rooms available 
(for a price, of course). We got home via the subway and train 
to New Jersey from Penn Station on Wednesday morning. I was 
still cold. 
All of my co-workers are safe and alive. There are so many 
people that died. One of my daughter's classmates' mothers 
was a victim. She has a younger sister who is four years old. 
I will be okay, and so will my mother and cousin. I am deal-
ing with some post-traumatic stress issues. I have nightmares, 
not as often now as I did initially. I dream of fireballs and of the 
man lying in the street. I have woken my husband in the mid-
dle of the night by crawling on the floor looking for things I've 
79 
J ohnson-Oberwanowicz 
lost. I have feelings of guilt for being a survivor, and for not suf-
fering as much physical pain as others on that day. My daugh-
ter cannot go to sleep at night unless I am home. Our young 
pastor has been a rock for both of us. I thank God for her as 
well. 
I have thanked God continually throughout this ordeal. I 
believe, and my mother and cousin believe, that they were with 
me on that day for a reason. I have worked in or around the 
World Trade Center in New York City for 15 years, and my fam-
ily had never been in to visit. My cousin tried two other times 
to get vacation, and that week was the only time she could 
come. My family believes that if she and my mom had not been 
with me, I would have gone back to my office to get important 
papers or to help someone, and they are probably right. I had 
to focus on getting them out, which prevented me from going 
back. We also believe that we had a guardian angel at work that 
day with God; my grandmother, my mother's mother who has 
been gone now for 23 years. She always seems to be around 
when we need her. We were guided out of the building. I have 
never felt God's presence any stronger than I did during our 
escape, and in the days that followed. 
Tragic events such as these bring people closer together and 
change lives forever. My co-workers are closer now than we 
ever were before. You must tell those that you care about that 
you love them every day. Do not leave special words unsaid, do 
not forget to show the people you care about how special they 
are to you. 
Be a proud American and stand tall for your country. Do 
what you can to help anyone who needs assistance. Hug your 
children, your spouse, family, friends and even co-workers. Life, 
love, and freedom are such precious gifts. 
80 


A Day in September

Zimmerman, Lisa

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 03 Article 10 
2003 
Lies/Truths 
Lisa Zimmerman 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Zimmerman, Lisa (2003) "Lies/Truths," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 03, Article 10. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol03/iss2003/10 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Lisa Zimmerman 
LIES/TRUTHS 
Lies 
The sun is a broken window on fire . 
The stars speak the color of my real name. 
Angels whisper Osama Osama in their sleep. 
The dog's bones gleam in the dark. 
The dark is the underside of God's one eyelid. 
Hearts are like the sun only not on fire 
Or do I mean not like a window 
Or do I mean green glass you can see through? 
Truths 
There is a river of grief beneath the world. 
Horses remember the rumble of dinosaurs. 
My boy grew an inch in less than a month. 
My husband was a boy once with a poem in his pocket. 
Bales of sweet grass wear down in the barn 
to give room to the cat, to give room 
to the mice. 
Under the lake there are turtles. Under the lake 
there are mysteries. The lake knows 
all about the river of grief. 
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