Anna Kamienska, "The key"

A small boy wears a key
round his neck on a string.
A symbol of homelessness.
He carries his empty home,
where he can return any time
but he will not go back because
empty houses do not make homes.
Don't lose it, said his mother, leaving.
Dinner is in the oven.
One day he will lose the key,
he will wander as if in a dream,
he will pluck at his chest.
It was there, on thick string.
A small boy with a key.
I meet him on my way
and cannot help him at all.
I lost all my keys too.

___
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Claire Cavanagh

βλ.
www.wsp.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/polpoet/kamienska.htm