a partying country that had no place for us
anymore, that's how the moon
rose for us above the forest
like a scene in a russian painting and

if you looked carefully you could see our
continents, africa, australia and even
italy, although its boot had shrunk
and seemed to flap about like the coat

of someone who was in a hurry, or like a banner,
as if there could be wind there, on the moon,
autumn, a shower of rain, something that began
and then ended the way everything does here, with us

Translation: Judith Wilkinson