From "The Hudson Lines"
© Sarah Heady
Dear _______,
Because I neglected to write you for so long, it almost doesn’t make sense to answer. By way of response: right now we’re passing West Point, south of which was once a college called Ladycliff. For several rides now I’ve spotted an abandoned building on the bluff there, an institutional hulk of some kind, and have wondered. But the only way to find out what it is is to get excruciatingly close, a closeness disallowed by trains. I’m realizing the last few times I’ve taken this ride, the trees lacked leaves: March, December, March: and now that they’re full, it’s much harder to see the shore because of tree-screens. A tire floating in the shallows, the wake of an unseen craft, a girl on the phone a few seats back: these constitute—along with the threatening domes of Indian Point (feared to melt down any day)—the ride. The ride I’m on right now, which is the only one I can speak to.
Dear _______,
Sometimes I get a glimpse of what feels like god: a shining-out openness, an honesty. It’s easy to move among strangers when you hold the shield of empathy; you forgive yourself for the same things you forgive in others. It’s a feedback loop. After Croton-Harmon, this train goes express all the way to Harlem, so it passes a bunch of towns without stopping. The people on those platforms only see my train as it’s speeding past them. That’s how it’s done, I think—you put yourself somewhere else, on that vanishing platform for instance, and you imagine how they see you: as a blur, as nothing at all, and you understand you are not the center of anything.
Dear _______,
First view of the city: we’re officially in the Bronx. I still need to put on my coat, and quick. To answer another question of yours, and speaking of death: no, I don’t think I’d die if I couldn’t write. Right now my hand hurts, actually, so I’m going to stop—have to be ready—and I feel that need for readiness in my body all the time.
Sarah Heady is a poet and essayist interested in place, history, and the built environment. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Comfort (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022, finalist for the National Poetry Series) and Niagara Transnational (Fourteen Hills, 2013, winner of the Michael Rubin Book Award). Her latest project, “The Hudson Lines,” was a semifinalist for Tupelo Press’ 2025 Helena Whitehill Award and received an honorable mention for Green Linden Press’ 2025 Wishing Jewel Prize. Sarah’s writing has appeared in such journals as Fence, Jewish Currents, Chartreuse, Speculative Nonfiction, Contra Viento, Ghost Proposal, and OmniVerse. She is the recipient of residencies from the Corporation of Yaddo, In Cahoots, Bethany Arts Community, and Art Farm. Raised in the Hudson River Valley of New York State, she now lives in San Francisco.