Ten pound art book about Berlin. Black and whites

of a bear rifled down in a square, boys in sun on rubble,

a woman wearing a gas mask pushing a pram.

I was examining each photo for a glimpse of street corner

or sidewalk, wondering if it could be the spot

where my ancestor the roofer’s head

smashed into the pavement when he fell, the loss

that earned the payout that put his children on a boat

that put me here, when I smelled something burning,

but what began as an acrid odor softened

to the familiar scent of bonfires, signature fragrance

of the dying season. I never know where it’s coming from,

but in it there’s always that warm anticipation

of Halloween I remember, and within that the disappointment

when it was never like the movies: no New England

facades, no sidewalks choked with kids, there weren’t

enough of us, and yet I hear children’s laughter

like I’m there again, not in the memory, but the expectation—

outside the window a girl is filming on her phone

another girl tossing handfuls of red maple

over her head. I can see on the screen the video

playing in a short, closed loop. The leaves go up,

then are rewound into her hands, never falling all the way

into the grass over which they’re scattered now

after she dropped them when suddenly a firetruck blared by,

awaking at my feet the dog I’m paid to keep alive.