what?

The startling red leaves block the whole sky out. We wanted to gather them in our hands. We had seen the night in our mirrors, but it meant nothing to us, the moon idling in the window and never earning its keep. The dirty stoops surged over with steam that belled from the manholes and slipped, softly as sleep, without sorrow or ire, to the hills. But it wasn't so long ago we stood out there ourselves with sorry fistfuls of branches. We wanted to look up at the night, surprised at the moon, which would wash over us like slaked lime. Or go to Goa where it comes down to lap at blue ledges. But carelessly and cast aside, scraped clean, the moon sits in the square like a melon rind tossed in the street.