paraded against a city sky

shabby blue

they were always too white and suddenly there

they were never fingers never xylophones

although once a stranger said they put him in mind of pans pipes

and all the lost songs of Greece

but to the town's people they were like cigarettes

their smell chewy and brittle

like a field shorn of milkweed, or beer brewing

or fingernails scorched over a flame

no, no exclaimed the children

they are a fresh packet of chalk

dreading math work

they were masculine toys

they were tall wishes

they were ribs of the modern world