The young scholar
                    in crisp uniform
                    drops his books

                    pages flap like
                    white doves.

                    Mother's hidden
                    in the polished
                    furniture. An eye
                    peers from a
                    knot in the table,

                    to find her son
                    beside his books
                    weeping.

                    The French Revolution
                    now scattered about
                    the kitchen floor

                    in tiny guillotines.


Copyright © José Hernando Chaves, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.