Seeking Solace from the Stratosphere
by Lana Hechtman Ayers

Like shoulders above the mahogany tree-trunks,
thunderheads gather in late August’s stifling days.
I sense the new school year soon to commence
though I have been an adult a long while, grown
away from innocent hopes, whole decades
of my life equal parts hallucination and regret.
Educated by rote and remote entanglements,
I envy children their loose
affiliations and flashy laughter.
This air is a fist in my throat–you are gone for good.
Maple trees comb silvery heat waves with green
shadow and my dog’s pink tongue puddles
the strawed grass like a drooping flower.
What can I stand for now, brother, fallen 9/11 hero,
when the textbooks we tested on in grade school
have been overwritten with different truths?
I want to swallow effortlessly once more.
May coming rains rewrite my memory of you as pure.


This poem begins with a line from Patricia Fargnoli’s “Winter Sky Over Cheshire
County, New Hampshire” and is dedicate to my brother Alan, a Red Cross volunteer
EMT who was present at the World Trade Center on September 11th and died of a rare
leukemia attributed to exposure to toxins in burning jet fuel.