Ocean Grove. October 2020. By Paul Goldfinger. ©. Click to enlarge.
Pier
By Charles Pierre
In letters of my name
I see the weathered pier,
where boys fished all day
above the ocean swells,
and teens kissed by night
as the tide slid under them,
until that storm, unseen
along this coast before,
split the planks and rails
to nameless bits onshore.
ANDRE KOSTELANETZ.
From Puccini’s La Boheme.
Editor’s note: Charles Pierre tells us that October 29 is the 8th anniversary of Super Storm Sandy’s arrival in the New York Metro Area.
He said, “I thought that it might be appropriate to mark the occasion with poetry and am enclosing my poem ‘Pier.’
“The pier named in the piece is actually one that was destroyed near my hometown of Centerport, NY, but it is close enough in detail to conger up images of the one in Ocean Grove.”