Reflections of 9/11

By Spindle Issues Editor,

Dandelions, by Matthew Charles Siegel

POETRY

All I'd Leave Behind, by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
sometimes I think about what would be left behind, if I were
to evaporate into all that angry burning air: the letters left

Depression, too, is a kind of fire, by Taylor Mali
out of the smoke with arms flailing.
And I swear I saw a perfect swan.

Stand Clear, by Shappy Seasholtz
Maybe the Mayor is a sentient android
who is intent on killing us all!

Succumbing, by Patricia Smith
Landscape still beneath him, arms still blindly flailing,
Bobby must remember that to squelch the blazing

Volunteering After 9-11, by Marie-Elizabeth Mali
I found a foot today,
put it in a bucket,

FICTION

Old New York by Kevin MacDonald
More than anything, it seemed, pain was what sold. People loved to explore the darker sides of the New York experience. They wanted to be beaten up and robbed and treated like crap. Maybe they thought they could exorcise their guilt over being rich by subjecting themselves to manufactured hardship. Whatever longing drove these people to us, Appleby was more than happy to accommodate their whims.

ESSAYS

In Remembrance: Affirm Life, by Bassey Ikpi
Thinking of people who haven't crossed our minds in months, sometimes years but suddenly remembering, "Isn't so and so's office down there?"

Blur, by Adan Jimenez
^Blur. I found myself sprinting past 7th street, choking back tears, thinking one thing: far.

Remembering 9/12, by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
The actual straw for me wasn't the attacks, but instead it was a craven Rudy Giuliani's hollow exhortations that life must go on, his primary concern being that people start shopping again so businesses didn't suffer.

REVIEWS

Shooting War by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman's Shooting War springs forth from that all-consuming geyser of leftist rage over President's Bush's ill-conceived and criminally conducted war in Iraq, and is much better than I expected it to be as the main character, self-righteous video blogger Jimmy Burns, isn't terribly appealing at first, cut from the same whiny, privileged cloth as the average Brian Wood protagonist.

Combat Zone: True Tales of GIs in Iraq, by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Whereas Lynch's experience was a great story because of who she was and how she handled things, especially in helping the whole truth come out, there's not a single three-dimensional character in Zinsmeister's collection of cardboard ciphers for the reader to care about.

In the Shadow of No Towers, by Jana L. Perskie
There is no more eloquent description to mark absence, to recall violence and infamy, than Mr. Spiegelman's depiction of these two shadows.

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