After 9/11 We Wonder if We Should Ever Celebrate

by Saba Keramati

Remember: we have done this
before. We have stood with our fathers,
watched the east. Yes, the sky

looks different tonight,
and maybe it is. After all,
we are still here:

still laughing, still jumping.
Consider: each spark a small firework,
each leap a small delight.

Listen: once, I was afraid to jump
but my mother did not know.
Our hands clasped; my knees buckled

while my arm went with hers. My elbow
popped out of its house, still creaks
like a rusty door hinge when I try to use it.

Wednesdays are for truths.
Sayeh: shadow.
Sadeh: simple.

Danger lurks in the eye of the fire.
We have been jumping over it
since we were children.

We have landed on the other side
of the flame, our feet soft
in the sand.

Saba Keramati is a Chinese-Iranian writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds degrees in English and creative writing from University of Michigan and UC Davis. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, AGNI, Seventh Wave, and other publications. She is the Poetry Editor at Sundog Lit.