Maxwell Bodenheim Poems : Rear Porches of an Apartment Building

A sky that has never known sun, moon, or stars,
A sky that is like a dead, kind face
Would have the color of your eyes,
O servant-girl singing of pear-trees in the sun
And scraping the yellow fruit you once picked
When your lavender-white eyes were alive.
On the porch above you sit two women
With faces the color of dry brown earth;
They knit grey rosettes and nibble cakes.
And on the porch above them are three children
Gravely kissing each other's foreheads,
And an ample nurse with a huge red fan. . . .
The death of afternoon to them
Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on brick walls.