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      September 11, 2017After Reading a 12/4/2001 Associated Press ReportPadma Thornlyre

      1.
       
      More than a million tons of rubble
      from the World Trade Center towers, 
      and an estimated ten thousand body
       
      parts—what wasn’t reduced to smoke 
      or vaporized. “Vaporized.” It takes 
      more than a moment for that one 
       
      to sink in, because it means only this, 
      that we are breathing the dead, the dead 
      who lingered in Manhattan and are now
       
      dispersed upon the eight winds, becoming
      a breeze in Kandahar, a gust in Qala-i-Jangi, 
      the stuff through which mortar fragments
       
      fragment the fragile bodies of the Taliban,
      of al-Qaeda warriors trumpeting bin Laden,
      holed up in Tora Bora’s honeycomb caves.
       
       
      2.
       
      I wonder what stranger, what potential 
      friend has entered my nostrils here
      in Colorado, and if she’s why I’ve been 
       
      sneezing, why my eyes are dry
      and burning, my throat raw, 
      the mucus thick and welling 
       
      well inside my head. I’m not fond
      of Magritte, but I can’t stop myself
      from seeing Golconde, a human rain.
       
      Accursed for our worshippings,
      damned for our devotions, gutted
      by the very God whose blood we drink.
       
       
      3.
       
      Today, George Harrison’s ashes
      will be given to the Ganges. Give me
      love, give me love, give me peace on Earth.
       
      May he find his way to the salt; may
      the water that holds him evaporate;
      may he, too, become our breathing.

      from #56 - Summer 2017

      Padma Thornlyre

      “My psychological constellations include a severe anxiety disorder, persistent depression, and occasional bouts with dissociation and fragmentation, as well as autism in the high-moderate range. In practical terms, this translates into a history of disastrous personal relationships, employment beneath my education, and a marginalized, on-the-brink life, economically, all fueled by low self-esteem and a sense of not belonging. Artistically, however, living with mental illness means I am open to perceptual possibilities that are unusual but rendered malleable by the trickery of language. For instance, having benefited from therapy with a brilliant depth psychologist, I honor dreams as providing much of my content-matter; and having experienced fragmentary states, I sometimes construct new poems from fragments of other works, like collage, creating new types of ‘wholeness.’”

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