(9-11 photo of the man falling from the WTC)

Manhattan Buddha

by Mark Smith-Soto

Straight-backed, seated on the window ledge,

he looks down at traffic pebbling the street ninety floors below,

the hair at the back of his neck about to catch,

nothing but morning air under his dangled feet.

The flames behind him make the sound of waves

trying to clutch the sand they just can’t hold, the way they never could.

He sees it all and smiles.

There is no humbug in him,

in his oblique worship of the horizon,

the seagulls, the faithful ferries dragging like dunked flies across the water;

his face alert as if he watched God watching,

he opens his arms and falls -- leaving me here

inside, clinging to myself, the walls on fire.