Masks and Madness

for 9/11

by Tolu Ogunlesi

She leaned on her brother's lego towers,

Being at that age when everything becomes

An aid to the miracle of mobility. Hers was

To sow disassembly on the industrious fields

Of a sibling's imagination. Innocently.

Far out in the world, men learn

The miracle of walking planes on leashes,

Testicles burning with artificial fire,

Striding into gangling towers

Innocent as placard-carrying activists.

Far out in another world, Hitler and Mao

Compare notes, ruing the slow evolution

Of human imagination. "I'd have built airports,

Not Auschwitz; sent Israel to Canaan

On Economy," Hitler says, in a rare interview.

Mao nods absentmindedly, he spends his days

Building Boeings from the pages of the red

Book. In New York, men settled for suicide,

Hurtled down burning towers, voices willed

To answering machines that reproduce

Every nuance of terror, and leak the smells

Of burning words, burning goodbyes, burning

Skins, burning everything. The journey

Of a thousand stories ends with one step

Into dust, into ash, into the salt from many eyes,

Civilisation toppling at the sound of God's name.

And as for you who wear masks and madness, and chant

God's name in vain: Pack all the fear you can, into

The aisles of a million jets, and watch them explode

Prematurely with a heroism that is not yours — and never will be.