Susan Landers
Ping’s Water Overwrites Everything Mankind Tries To Do
Gerritsen Creek
What did it sound like by the water?
After the Doobie Brothers, after the jetski,
after the trucks rumble by on the Belt,
after the women grill chicken in a firepit,
and a teenager casts their line,
after a thin crowd on a slip of sand
dwindles to one man wading thigh-high with a net,
the phragmites in bloom susurrate.
The fiddler crabs play in decay.
The clapper rail chortles a chirp,
and an osprey call cuts like a whistle
through the sumac, the bayberry, the cordgrass,
the car carcass, here, in this place for the hardy,
for the ones that can deal with whatever
the tide brings and whatever it carries away.
after the trucks rumble by on the Belt,
after the women grill chicken in a firepit,
and a teenager casts their line,
after a thin crowd on a slip of sand
dwindles to one man wading thigh-high with a net,
the phragmites in bloom susurrate.
The fiddler crabs play in decay.
The clapper rail chortles a chirp,
and an osprey call cuts like a whistle
through the sumac, the bayberry, the cordgrass,
the car carcass, here, in this place for the hardy,
for the ones that can deal with whatever
the tide brings and whatever it carries away.
Muriel Walked In The River Of Crisis Toward The Real
East River
What color would you call this water?
In the drowned valley,
the river’s thick ribbons
of gray play in the swell.
A family barbeques beside
the candy cane smokestacks.
Carousels and cormorants.
Gulls bob unbothered by a boat.
The way a river goes back
and forth is called a meander.
The river, a murky throughline
from the world’s largest
stock exchange to its biggest
prison ship, cannot explain
how either continues to exist.
the river’s thick ribbons
of gray play in the swell.
A family barbeques beside
the candy cane smokestacks.
Carousels and cormorants.
Gulls bob unbothered by a boat.
The way a river goes back
and forth is called a meander.
The river, a murky throughline
from the world’s largest
stock exchange to its biggest
prison ship, cannot explain
how either continues to exist.
Katherine Thinks Water Is Just One of the Ways We Are All Connected
Spuyten Duyvil Creek
Where do the rivers meet?
Where the devil spews a current
and the crow caws under the high-rise
past the swing bridge where the train
horns blow and the osprey hunts
on the rocky promontory inside the glacial
potholes where marble lies beneath the schist
above a witch hazel understory
between the ridges in the wading place
beside the cove and the night heron’s mudflat
near the scullers the recovered marsh
the place of the reeds the flooded path
the glistening place where we saw that rat
and the sandpipers released their metallic spink
at the tip of the island on our day off.
and the crow caws under the high-rise
past the swing bridge where the train
horns blow and the osprey hunts
on the rocky promontory inside the glacial
potholes where marble lies beneath the schist
above a witch hazel understory
between the ridges in the wading place
beside the cove and the night heron’s mudflat
near the scullers the recovered marsh
the place of the reeds the flooded path
the glistening place where we saw that rat
and the sandpipers released their metallic spink
at the tip of the island on our day off.
Duane’s Bridges Go About Their Business
Harlem River
How many ways can you cross the river?
The river snug, tucked
between island and island, slips
between the highway and a marsh
between hell gates with a history of asylum.
Perennials add sinuous flow
as security guards come and go
at shift change from the temporary shelters
for ongoing emergencies.
Fishermen catch striped bass
by the combined sewer overflow.
Concrete and scrub shrub.
Bridge to bridge to bridge
over and through the littoral zone,
a refuge for companions in fluctuation.
between island and island, slips
between the highway and a marsh
between hell gates with a history of asylum.
Perennials add sinuous flow
as security guards come and go
at shift change from the temporary shelters
for ongoing emergencies.
Fishermen catch striped bass
by the combined sewer overflow.
Concrete and scrub shrub.
Bridge to bridge to bridge
over and through the littoral zone,
a refuge for companions in fluctuation.
Mary Worried About Which Direction the River Would Flow
Erie Basin
How fast was the water moving?
the swell is the memory of a wave
the memory of the fetch the fetch
where the wind lifts the sea
channel to basin channel to flats
from channel to bay to harbor
stormwater ponds a pothole
patched above a spring
a buoy bell gongs
a sign relays what used to happen here
chock a block to raise a boat
crane a boom to swing
to tie a knot a skill and now
a basin full of cruise ships
asphalt for a sea
the memory of the fetch the fetch
where the wind lifts the sea
channel to basin channel to flats
from channel to bay to harbor
stormwater ponds a pothole
patched above a spring
a buoy bell gongs
a sign relays what used to happen here
chock a block to raise a boat
crane a boom to swing
to tie a knot a skill and now
a basin full of cruise ships
asphalt for a sea
Poet Susan Landers is the author of several collections, including Franklinstein (Roof Books, 2016), Covers (O Books, 2007), and 248 mgs., a panic picnic (O Books, 2003). Her forthcoming collection, Sweet, Impossible City: Meditations in a Submergency will be published by Roof Books in 2025. She lives in Brooklyn.