Walking
   the boy saw:

The moon in a slot of sky
between the roofs of two houses.

Metal cobbles like shiny
backs of beetles – pieces of armor in a
book.

A yellow leaf shaped like
a heart or the tip of a spear flew
up against the steel-gray sky.

A house that showed a corner
of shattered masonry;
thin mud colored bricks.

The hands held feeling like
the orange light of a candle in a narrow
room.

On the white walls of a house
black lines.

Behind the calcimined walls
pictures of fish swallowing
their tails.

The blank faces of the houses and the
cylindrical trees.

This was 1937 or 1938.

*homeland