*The rack is what they call those wooden poles that stick up from the slip on the Hudson at the Ferry Terminal
When you take a Ferry from Staten Island to New York you see a lamp post sticking up from the water
The Hudson River
There are all these logs
logs
sticking up from the water
old logs
straight up
and you wonder how tall they are
They must go straight down
to the river
straight down and that is very far
since the Battery Tunnel is under the water
And I swam in the river
myself actually in a race
I came in second I was
all green in my petroleum
mouth in wonder at the
buildings from the other side
It was this "I just went into the Mirror, too, Alice"
and here I am swimming on
the tide past my apartment
there's my window
who's home
now?
When the Ferry goes into its'
slip it's all metal and paint
Orange ferry red and
blue apron black and
yellow gate dirty
The cop with the funny teeth and the mate, he's
right there
the Mate
First he was a Seaman and we
had babies now he's a Mate
The obvious line comes next
(we mated)
I love it
the old airport chairs in the Ferry
all lined up in rows and cubbies
Formica bent out of shape
There's an American flag stuck right out there on that slip
among those wooden poles
to commemorate the 11 dead in the ferry crash.
Or as my husband just said "Oh that one? they just stuck it out there cuz they wanted to"
(because they love America)
And there's a flag to commemorate the two thousand five hundred and ninety five dead on Freshkills. You see it in the harbor when you ride the ferry
The tourists look at the Statue of Liberty
I look
at the remains of 9/11 on
Freshkills
Buried out of that empty skyline
It was always called Freshkills, I think its' a Dutch name,
before the 9/11 victims were rested there
I don't want to mention his name, he's above this poem
but I remember you
you lived in
the NYU
faculty family housing buildings
On Laguardia and Bleeker with your mother
A square that was a bit in
from the Garden Grocery store
a square
a plaza with buildings
two squares
a plaza with buildings
We had our first kiss
in Waterside Plaza, or at least we told everyone we did
in eighth grade when
kissing was still a big deal
even though we never actually kissed
we just agreed to tell everyone we did
Your molecules are there I know
I wont say your name
buried and diffused.
And then there are those trees stuck in that pier
those long logs they cut from upstate
Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks
And carried down by train on a flatcar until Albany
And then put into a barge and pushed down
on a McCallister Tug and planted
into the bed of this river on the
tip of this Island.
I climbed Mount Marcy I did with
My father in those three hours he was
strong and I am still climbing it down somewhere
And then I jump into that fresh
pond in front of our lodge
and I taste mossy crisp water
flat on my tongue as I turn to
see your tall frame slide perfectly
into that dive.
Did a man
dive into the Hudson to plant these shaven trees?
Who planted these poles
a hundred years ago? When they dug the
hole, were there
oysters still in the harbor
and Bowery Boys in tunics
diving into the river
on the side
as you worked to get that rig steady
while you
built that slip?
And I wont say the obvious about
how the water must have gotten
ashy on that day with all that
paper and our faces like ghosts
and the Au Bon Pain was the only
thing open on that Monday
when they all went back to work
past those checkpoints
the lines of all those traders
like black mourning ants all funneling
to work on that 630am morning
when it was all still caked
everywhere and nobody could
pull anything out of their throats
except the ash, still on automatic
rage six days later, America
is still trading motherfucker
And I am here with you and
we know and Au Bon Pain is the
only thing open
The one on Water Street
with a yellow light
Except that other golden glow
with white flood lights plaza
I can't look toward that fire
There's ash on my finger and
a rack around my throat
