Pieces of Tillie
by Alison Milonakis
Now you're reduced to wreckage,
Just a pile of
colored stones.
The skies, aching for their winter grays
reflect absences,
a vacancy you created.
Emptied too,
the Jersey horizon
where once you arose,
beckoning the
worshippers of
summer.
How could they demolish
animation in your eyes?
Maniacal smile, reflecting
sun on shoreline sand.
Asbury barren of you,
depleted--
a desolation of a town.
Guardian of the waterfront,
who made you destructible?
Watcher of oceans and carrousels
who abandoned you?,
you turned to debris--
collapse of the icon,
into dust.
Not to be undone,
you resurface
in visions of beach and boardwalk,
in travelers who remember
the beacon of a smile
calling them back to the
Garden State.
In meadows of violets you remain
In shells
shells washed ashore,
in hiss of the tides, glow of
lights on the midway.
Listen, the friction of wings
against macadam,
gulls crying their lonely clamor
as if what's destroyed
will not be remembered
as though what echoes
does not carry on.
