Dumped
I didn’t find the 1st news story completely horrifying.
At 27, I can safely say
I have escaped
the black plastic bag suffocation fate
of an unwanted newborn.
But my gratitude
to logistical impossibility
was not long-lived.
A bodega bag
might not make a suitable coffin for me
but a suitcase certainly would.
An unidentified black woman 30-40 years of age
was discovered folded up like a snack tray
in a large duffel bag on an overpass
of the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Riverdale residents were interviewed.
The only drawback of living in their community,
they said, was that they were near the highway
& occasionally got dumped on.
In a 1984 silver Chevy Nova
I called the Tin Buggy
I drove up & down the Henry Hudson
my senior year of college.
I even dumped there some old fishing gear of my mother’s,
thinking someone might make use of it so near the water.
After I had my fill of the news
I wondered if the unidentified woman had ever walked
along the Hudson with her children.
If the weather permitted, I asked myself,
had she allowed them to dip their feet?
Lisa Jarnot / melissa christine goodrum / L. Sze / Michael Whalen / Matt Reeck / Drew Baughman / Napoleon Id / Britni Jackson / Nicole Steinberg / Kelly Matthews / V.L. Bond / Ed Go / Katy Resch / Chip Livingston
