A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours
Unlike Nellie Bly, penname of journalist ElizabethSeaman, the first American woman to navigateAround the world in seventy-two days in 1890,We set off on the “Nellie Bly” doubtful, tentativeOf early season weather and April winds, yetA hint of hopeful courage wafted on our dieselEngine launch from Sheepshead Bay Yacht Club.Salt and sun percolated on our skin. We jetted outInto LowerDestiny. The concave of the sea lapped the convexOf the shore. “Nellie” bobbed on green waters. WeSoaked and simmered and undulated and drifted.Then, as if by providence, wind descended upon“Nellie Bly,” her sail unfolded like heavenly wingAnd our lungs filled with air, our chests inflatedAs conquistadors’. … To sailIs to steer by angles, degrees, perpendicularTo the foil shape and mast, never a straightLine but a crack at equilibrium between keelAnd airstream, pulsed by tiller, housed in a hull.Elizabeth, I would’ve taken on Jules Verne’s dare, the shove ofEnterprise in the mechanism of progress, on this carousel ofYour namesake where I witnessed the Carnivalesque ofEmpire, and learned Coney Island was, indeed, once anIsland made peninsular through takeover and landfill.
