Paulus Hook Ferry - NY Waterway

9/11 to 9/19/2001 
My bedroom window faced the parking lot.
I loved the order of its lines.   
Meticulous parking to maximize space.
The lot’s selling point – proximity to the ferry. 

At the end of the first night, ash still fell on the river. 
27 cars remained in the lot. I picked one: a white Lexus. 
Each morning I had to pass National Guardsmen  
just to buy the Jersey Journal at the deli. 
  
Gradually the lot was emptying.
Please, please someone come, I would say, 
pressing my head into my hands. 

Eighth day. 
A sheet of paper appeared under the wiper blades.
A warning maybe, that it would be towed.

This place I had loved for its stunning view,
for ducks in the harbor, the sugar factory’s  
bronze facade, no matter, now all I could see  
was this white car
held between two yellow lines. 

Whoever you were, today, in sand 
at the Blackfoot River I draw a circle  
around you and place in its center
everything I carried of you across the country  
to the biggest sky, big enough to hold everything  
about that day as a speck.  

Now the sky’s black clouds  
stir the tallest pines.
They sway but do not collapse 
they sway but do not disappear. 

MARY JANE NEALON

Mary Jane Nealon, gifted time from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; Breadloaf Writers Conference; and the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, has two poetry books: Rogue Apostle and Immaculate Fuel (Four Way Books, NY) and a memoir, Beautiful Unbroken: One Nurse’s Life (Graywolf). She lives in Missoula, Montana.