From a Very Little Sphinx

I

Come along in then, little girl!
Or else stay out!
But in the open door she stands,
And bites her lip and twists her hands,
And stares upon me, trouble-eyed:
“Mother,” she says, “I can’t decide!
I can’t decide!”

II

Oh, burdock, and you other dock,
That have ground coffee for your seeds,
And lovely long thin daisies, dear—
She said that you are weeds!
She said, “Oh, what a fine bouquet!”
But afterwards I heard her say,
“She’s always dragging in those weeds.”

III

Everybody but just me
Despises burdocks. Mother, she
Despises ’em the most because
They stick so to my socks-and drawers.
But father, when he sits on some,
Can’t speak a decent word for ’em.

IV

I know a hundred ways to die.
I’ve often thought I’d try one:
Lie down beneath a motor truck
Some day when standing by one.

Or throw myself from off a bridge—
Except such things must be
So hard upon the scavengers
And men that clean the sea.

I know some poison I could drink.
I’ve often thought I’d taste it.
But mother bought it for the sink,
And drinking it would waste it.

V

Look, Edwin! Do you see that boy
Talking to the other boy?
No, over there by those two men—
Wait, don’t look now—now look again.
No, not the one in navy-blue;
That’s the one he’s talking to.
Sure you see him? Striped pants?
Well, he was born in Paris, France.

VI

All the grown-up people say,
“What, those ugly thistles?
Mustn’t touch them! Keep away!
Prickly! Full of bristles!”
Yet they never make me bleed
Half so much as roses!
Must be purple is a weed,
And pink and white is posies.

VII

Wonder where this horseshoe went.
Up and down, up and down,
Up and past the monument,
Maybe into town.

Wait a minute. “Horseshoe,
How far have you been?”
Says it’s been to Salem
And halfway to Lynn.

Wonder who was in the team.
Wonder what they saw.
Wonder if they passed a bridge—
Bridge with a draw.

Says it went from one bridge
Straight upon another.
Says it took a little girl
Driving with her mother.