Short Parlours Poems

The children were asked to paint

What they remember of summerbreak

In other parts of the world

They would have painted beaches, bicycles

And smiling stickmen in front of ice cream parlours

 

But these stickmen were expressionless,

Lying face down, shaded red

In the background, the red and gold tongues

Of renegade flames licked the sky

Black with the soot of burning buildings, their homes....

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