For the Clouds

5pm and I was stuck on the Palisades Parkway heading south in an attempt to pick up my husband who had walked and hitchhiked from midtown Manhattan to someplace in NJ.  The two lane parkway had swelled to 4 lanes;  3 for traffic because the police had shut it down just ahead of me, and the 4th– the left shoulder– was for a  steady stream of emergency vehicles.  A fighter jet screamed overhead and "Hallelujah" came on the radio.  I watched puffs of clouds float up the river on that cloudless day. They floated by and disappeared. All they were now–all those lives–just clouds.  That morning, before the phone rang, I had started the final paintings for a book I was working on. A week or two later, when I went back to it, I could never get the girl to smile.  She looks like she's crying through half the book.  I guess I was.