Giving thanks to the Italians

For the huts they’d left behind them,

Huts with well-planked walls and ceilings,

Roofed with red tiles from the village,

Fitted out with chairs and tables,

Beds and doors and real glass windows.

Very restful, very soothing,

After the eternal sandbags

And the corrugated iron

Of the dug-outs they’d been used to—