Haiku
by Roberta Beary
9/11
my brother pauses
to breathe
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I wrote this haiku about my brother David and his work on 9/11. Now retired from NYPD, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers were under attack, he safeguarded those living and working in lower Manhattan. In the days following, I could not reach him. I feared he had not survived the attacks. It was only years later that I learned he volunteered to be stationed at Ground Zero for an extended period, risking his own health in the process. This uncredited photo of my brother was taken during that time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Roberta Beary’s second collection of short poems, Carousel, is co-winner of the Snapshot Press 2019 book award contest. Her first short-form collection, The Unworn Necklace, received a finalist book award from the Poetry Society of America. Her collection of prose poetry, Deflection, was named a National Poetry Month Best Pick by Washington Independent Review of Books. A long-term editor at Modern Haiku, she lives in the west of Ireland with her husband, Frank Stella, and tweets her photoku and micro-poetry on Twitter @shortpoemz. Read more at her website or on Facebook.
Author portrait by Henry Denander