Existe un Chinatown en cada espacio, Racimos de faroles rojos prenden La estela de miradas viadantes Que persiguen fuego en Manhattan, En la ciudad que acoge a los dragones. De Canal Street a Zona Cero, Piernas estremecidas desbocadas. Esta vez no es el fuego de un dragón, no son las lamparillas de las fiestas, no son los tintineos de la música: es el fin de Occidente y de su gloria. El ojo no concibe lo que ve, enjambre de terror en aquel cielo, libertad de los pájaros quemados. Un avión sobrevuelta el World Trade Center, otro avión se aproxima desde el sur, creativa ficción hecha verdad muda. La confusión impregna las consciencias, parálisis del fósil nervio óptico. Debo saber que guerra ha comenzado. Es el desabordamiento del abismo, La vida se detiene y arde el cielo, arde la humanidad, reina el pavor. Es la hecatombe, gritos, llantos, muerte, caras desfiguradas, huesos rotos, muertos, desasosiego, dolor, muertos. Todos padeceremos el derrame de vidas por las calles, enscenario ensangrentado. Somos solo cráneos. el ser humano abrasa al ser humano. Llamas en el Pentágono. Perdemos. Nueva York, cementerio de illusiones. Nueva York, devorado por el miedo. Se suicidan y matan. ¿Por qué Dios? Es la desolación de las razones, religión, terrorismo, los gobiernos. Existe un gen que mata y asesina. Every place has its Chinatown, clusters of red lanterns light the paths of pedestrians on the move who follow the fire in Manhattan, the city that welcomes dragons. from Canal Street to Ground Zero, uncontrolled, tremulous legs. This time it is not a dragon's fire, no trivial party illuminations, This is not the tinkling of music: it is the end of the West and its glory. The eye does not take in what it sees, the swarm of terror in that sky, the freedom of incarcerated birds. An airplane flies over the World Trade Center, another approaches from the south, creative fiction made mute truth. Confusion permeates consciousness paralysis of a fossilized optic nerve. I ought to know what war has been brought on. It is the overflow of the abyss, life stops and the sky burns, humanity is burning, terror reigns. It is the hecatomb, cries, weeping, death, disfigured faces, broken bones, the dead, torment, pain, the dead. We will all suffer the spilling out of lives into the streets, the bloodied cityscape. We are nothing but skulls, Human being burns human being. The Pentagon in flames. We lose. New York, cemetery of illusions. New York, devoured by fear. They kill themselves and others. For what kind of God? It is the desolation of reason, religion, terrorism, governments. There is a gene that kills, that slaughters. -Alicia Aza

Close tight the gates of conscious thought, Lock them with rusted iron chains. Eyes glazed like window panes on cold, wet days When dew and fog gather on the glass. Safe, at last, to regress into my own world. I step onto a field of grass that stretches beyond the horizon, A patchwork meadow surrounding an ancient oak Tall enough to reach beyond the clouds, Older than the earth’s craggy mountains. Minuscule points of light radiate from among its branches, Elves and faeries tending their fires. A butterfly with wings wider than a river Rides the wind, like a fish the current. It sails over the sea of greenery, Tracing the edge of a diverse cluster of flowers. The royal purples and resonant blues of the felty fabric It wears upon its dark, slender body Glow in the stray rays of dying day Beneath a sky of red and rose. The world is beating on my gates, Threatening to shatter the walls of my castle. Iron chains splinter into a billion pieces, Broken chains for a broken boy, And the world comes rushing in again. -Graham Lazorchak

Excerpts from “Summer” There is that sound like the wind Forgetting in the branches that means something Nobody can translate. And there is the sobering “later on,” When you consider what a thing meant, and put it down. For the time being the shadow is ample And hardly seen, divided among the twigs of a tree, The trees of a forest, just as life is divided up Between you and me, and among all the others out there… …And the face Resembles yours, the one reflected in the water. -John Ashbery