she came down
the people on the ferry
leaving staton island
will be the first
ones to notice--
they're
the morning people--
clutching coffee cups full
of holy water-- letting
sea air kiss their necks
lightly-- leaving barnacles
to grow there-- a nurse
will make small talk about
traffic & a university student
will pace the deck
as she always does-- trying
to write a thesis under her
feet while also
thinking about how easy it
would be for the whole thing
to sink--
from inside the hull--
on an orange plastic bench
would sit a man who rode back &
forth three times already
that day--
he'd look up to gaze wistfully
at his green copper lover
only to find an empty
space & a vacant pedestal
against the back drop of
the red-plum dawn--
he'd stand up & walk to
the porthole
he'd usher others
over to check to make
sure that this time it wasn't
only him who had lost her--
by the time the ferry docked
every passenger would be
frantic--
looking into the horizon like
a sandbox or a sink drain
for the green body of
the statue of liberty--
but she was no where
to be found--
people would start to call her
name down the streets--
post her picture in every bus
station-- every subway stop
in new york--
the whole city would
form one body to miss her
with--
the mayor would make her promises
if only she would crawl back
up onto her stage--
other women tried to stand there--
they'd hold a contest to try
to fill the position & only end up
weeping & calling into
the night for her to come home
& all the while
she would be there--
bunched up in an overcoat in
central park--
she'd wake up in the morning
& buy a loaf of dollar store
bread rolls-- crumple them &
feed them to the pigeons &
laugh when the birds flourished
around her like storm clouds--
she'd buy a hot dog from
the grumpiest hot
dog vendor & he would always ask
her if he'd seen her somewhere--
she'd brush a strand of her away from
her face & tell him gently that
he must be mistaken--
she'd eat hot dogs with mustard
& relish they way we should
all he eat hot dogs--
as night would come she would
be cold & she'd try to
sleep on a park bench away from
where a police man might see her--
a handful of midnights they would
come by & wake her up--
she'd sleep walk to another part of the
city-- crown clutched tight
to her chest--
eventually she'd make it
to port authority & she'd spend several days
just watching the buses come
& go-- she would have forgotten
how much of the world meets
in the city-- she'd ask
people where they were going &
her face would light up
as she listened
chicago, philedelphia, montreal,
frisco, pittsburg, boston--
she felt the people like the
city like doves flying out of
her mouth--
she'd pass a television
& hear another news cast about
a lost lady liberty &
for a moment she would pause
to hear him out--
under her arm would be the torch--
unlit-- looking almost like
a folded news paper--
there would come one morning
where she would decide it would
be okay to leave her own body
there-- she would kiss
the knees of the bench she
had slept on & walk onto
the first bus arriving at
gate 36 & because the number
would have looked divine to her--
she'd drop her torch in a
recycling bin & maybe keep
her crown for memories--
she'd run her hand through her
hair-- lean up against the bus
window & watch the city grow small
in the distance--
her nose would be running
from the cold &
a stranger next to her would
off her a tissue
from a pink traveling pack &
he'd pull out an earbud
& tell her that she looked
familiar
