I found him on the street:

green, like camouflage, I almost overlooked him,

among the brown October leaves

by the gray sidewalk.

One arm raised

but the raised arm broken off at the shoulder;

whatever it held had dropped.

One hand to his open mouth

broken off, too,

his mouth frozen in strained silence.

Like an ancient Greek statue

hauled from the seafloor,

his war, forgotten,

arms broken off from battles with robbers or time.

Hiding in the brown leaves–

who was he trying to signal?