New York Journey

On a train I watched her sleep through the relaxed majesty of the Hudson River American palaces and weathered fishing shacks lined the banks Had she awakened she would sent the palace dwellers far overseas, banished from her America She slept through ghost towns tucked away within the living cities of Albany and Schenectady and unpainted long-ago homes and shops of Rome, New York and miles of sleeping fields, brown and gray and white with winter Clacking wheels were her lullaby; her face, for once, a mask of stillness I savored the comfort of her closeness and didn't dare to wake her until we reached Syracuse Rolling homeward, she watched me watch the river roll past Rhinecliff (tony shops of things that had gained value from having been abandoned) Poughkeepsie (pastel houses that spoke of painfully mundane lives) Ossining (a living symbol of what "down the river" offers the unpriveleged) Dobbs Ferry (a refuge of homes and boats of peeling wood) Riverdale (streets of mystery creeping uphill and eastward past ancient but sturdy homes of an America foreign to her and me) South of Yonkers, she pointed (uphill & eastward) toward a place that had been home to her; a regretful smile decorated her face New York City: Penn Station found us in the freedom of bustling streets (for a two-hour layover) in the center of everything During a greasy lunch on 31st Street I watch her let go and find a moment of peace in the hectic city, in her turbulent life A moment of joy for me: a bite of eggplant pizza from her hand Back on the train: Steely towers of New Jersey spilling cascades of lights across the evening landscape A book and a crochet needle were her seatmates Across a river broad as life, Trenton advertised its useful in letters six stories high splashing neon into cold black water and the sprawl of Philadelphia whirled and turned in restless sleep At 30th Street Station the lovely woman I'd been watching write in her journal since Newark shouldered a duffel bag and strode out of my life, forever Wilmington and Baltimore rolled by in the anonymity of houses and sheds cloaked in wood, aluminum, and silence New Carollton, Maryland, too sterile for this night, was ignored; the train rumbled past on its way to a hundred homes And at Union Station as we disembarked with our lives on our shoulders my travel companion told me there was a home for me at the end of the line Written February 15th, 2002 © on Feb 18 2002 02:49 AM PST   0 • 10