Tanya Tuzeo
ground zero
my mother’s lungs collapsed
twenty years after the World Trade Center did—
Guiliani told everyone to go back to work
and so she did.
dust covered her desk, throat itchy
the ride home, for years
her singing voice was lower,
though her last Newport was when my grandfather died.
something of the crumbling empire entered her,
shut away in bedroom, shouts at the television—
my brother went to war
learned to daisy chain,
came out a demolition expert
just as fibrotic tissue tightly knit
our mother’s lungs in a rapid
succession of silent explosions.
at
war’s end
he forgets
it’s my son’s birthday, only calls
when our
mother tells him to
there was a moose near, he says,
and
couldn’t call.
for weeks,
he’s watched it strip maple
bathing so
deep antlers became driftwood
sifted
through cottongrass—together
further
into the mountain.
did you see the people falling from planes?
i want to
ask but don’t.
the people
he tracked long ago
through
what’s left of wild olive trees
routed
onto sagging rooftops
busted
concrete sprouting rebar
city of
Kandahar, pomegranates
once wove
streets explosive ruby—
where he
gave its children lollipops
for their
submission.
i want to
talk about these things,
but he
returns to the forest
broken
branches, rubbed bark, patterns in the loam—
slowly
finding his way to its maker.
my
youngest clenches pacifiers,
clustered
together, a bouquet
offered in
sleep.
neatly
packed between fingers,
latex
lilies spray outwards.
with his
hands full
i hold
onto his toes instead,
marvel at
the nubs of my creation—
ectodermal
cells formed
to respond
to this universe.
i scroll
through another sleepless night—
a father
in Gaza
also held
onto his baby’s toes.
crushed
together
he never
let go.
rhizomes
pushing through sandstone
blackened
by sudden frost,
tiny
globes cradled
a parent’s
last touch—
Tanya Tuzeo is a librarian at the College at Old Westbury, a mother of two, and the author of two poetry collections: We Live in Paradise and Wound Environment. Her work, featured in various literary publications, explores themes of intergenerational trauma, illness, and societal conflict. A finalist in the 2022 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest and longlisted in Frontier Poetry’s Nature & Place prize, her poetry reflects resilience, love, and the complexities of family bonds in a deteriorating world.