She relates Hegel's social analysis that 'death is used as a threat to keep citizens in line' (84). She then moves on to a discussion of what she learned from Hegel in college. The speaker takes note of how he is being represented by the media. They stare at all the people who have come to examine the wreckage, including the reporters.įollowing the attack, Osama bin Laden becomes a household name. The speaker takes note of the policemen on the scene and how they react to the scenery and events around them. It has cleared away the ash in some places and in others it has matted the ash and debris together, making it much worse. The rain has changed the landscape of the site: ink is bleeding off of posters of the missing (82). The fumes coming off the wreckage affect the speaker physically. She sees the rescue workers moving the wreckage and she compares them to dead men.

She thought there would be less smoke because of the rain, but there is still smoke in the air because the debris is still burning. Following the rain, the speaker goes down to the site. She tells us that three days after 9/11 it rains through the night. In the pages that follow, the speaker describes going to the rubble a few days after the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. In the speaker's eyes, this moment allowed Giuliani's understanding of those who died during 9/11 to become tangible and real. Since it wasn't shown on television, it was a 'moment to be heard and experienced' (81).

The speaker considers the image of Giuliani kneeling in front of the queen as he is knighted. Nothing distorts itself and seeks disguise more quickly' (81). For the speaker, this abstract number does not convey the loss that Guiliani 'recognized and answered for.'įollowing the moment with Giuliani, the speaker inserts a quote by Wallace Stevens about nobility and how it ignites our imagination: 'Nothing could be more evasive and inaccessible. The speaker goes on to say that it is 'incomprehensible and ungraspable' that three thousand people died in the attack. The speaker says that his response to a reporter after 9/11 that the city had lost 'more than we can bear' made the speaker take him seriously for the first time. Overhearing this conversation led the speaker to think about Guiliani in terms of his newfound nobility as well as his job as mayor of New York City.

The women are arguing about whether or not Rudy Giuliani should have been made to kneel before the Queen of England when he was knighted. At the beginning of Part 13, the speaker describes being on a bus and overhearing an argument between two women.

Rankine don t let me be lonely