by Sylvia Brill
Goodbye to Wrigley Field and the Chicago El.
To thousands of folding chairs,
Ears of corn, roast pork sandwiches,
The debris of countless political meetings.
Into the darkness go the contents of the Wicker Park Post Office,
Unsent, undelivered, unread.
And crepe paper flowers,
The remains of children’s birthday parties.
The entire Chicago Art Museum,
Even the big Seurat.
I was sure it would be spared,
But it was caught up as well.
Those Sunday revelers dissolving into the dots that made them.
There go the dresses of prom queens,
Cerise gauze and silver sequins,
Sparks in the dark ark of the sky.
I watched them until the blackness took them.
Sylvia Brill is a retired high school history teacher. She has worked with the Folk Singers’ League, the New York Rose Society, lived in Morocco and read a lot of poetry. This is her first published poem.