Sun-Up and Other Poems | Page 5

against her black bodice
and said what a beautiful green it was

and put it on the table
as though it had been a flower.
But next
day we boiled and ate it with salt.
It was our dinner.
: :
Christmas day
I found Janie on my pillow.
Janie is made of rubber.

Her red and blue jacket won't come off.
Christmas dinner was
green and white
chicken and lettuce and peas
and drops of oil on
the salad
smiley and full of light
like the gold on the lady's teeth.
But mama said politely
Thank you, we are dining out.
She wouldn't
let you take one pea
to put in the hole where the whistle was
at the
back of Janie's head,
so Janie should have some dinner
So you went

to the park with biscuits
and black tea in a bottle.
: :
You feel very sad
when you climb on the fence
to watch mama out
of sight.
The women in the alley
poke their heads out of doorways

and watch her too.
You know her
by the way she holds her
shoulders
till she is only a speck
in a chain of specks--
till she is
swallowed up.
But suppose
that day after day
you were to watch
for her face
and it didn't come back?
Suppose
it were to drop out
of the string of white faces
like the pearl out of my chain
I never
found again?
: :
Mabel minds you while mama is out,
she washes while she sings

Three blind mice!
they all run away from the farmer's wife
who cut
off their tails
with a carving knife--
Wind blows out Mabel's sheets,

way you blow in a bag before you burst it.
Wind has a soapy smell.

It's heavier'n sun
that lies all over you without any weight
and
makes you feel happy
and crinkly like bubbling water.
There's no
sun on the empty house--
sly-looking house--
you can't see in its
windows
that watch you out of their corners.
Perhaps there's a big
spider there
spinning gray threads over the windows
till they look
like dead people's faces....
Jimmie says:
Jimmie's hair is white as a
white mouse.
His lashes are gold as mama's wedding ring

and his
mouth feels cool and smooth
like a flower wet with rain.
You
wouldn't believe Jimmie was different...
till he showed you....
: :
Blind wet sheets
flapping on the lines...
sun in your eyes,
dark
gold sun
full of little black spots,
you have to blink and blink...


round eyes of Jimmie....
Jimmie's blue jumper...
blue shadow of
wall...
all the world holding still
as when a clock stops...
streets
still... people still...
no streets... no people...
only sky and wall...

sun glaring bright as God
down at you and Jimmie...
shadow like a
purple cloth
trailing off the wall...
Wild wet sheets
flapping in the wind...
big slippered feet flapping
too...
big-balloon-face
rushing up the alley...
houses closing up
again...
windows looking round...
... Mabel pulls you in the gate and
shakes you
and tells you not to tell your mama...
And you wonder

if God has spoiled Jimmie.
III
MAMA
Mama's face
is smooth and pale as tea-rose leaves.
That ivory oval
of aunt Gem
you sucked the miniature off
had black black hair like
mama.
: :
Pit-it-ty-pat,
Mama walks so fast,
street lamps jig
without bending
a leg...
lights in the windows
play twinkling tunes
on crimson and
blue
bottles like bubbles
big as balloons...
Faster and faster...

and pink light spurts
over cakes doing polkas
in little white shirts,

with cake-princesses
in flounced white skirts.
Pit-pat--
mama walks slower...

slower and... slower...
Eyes...
lamps... stars...
acres and acres of stars...
bells... and sleepily

flapping feet....
You're glad mama walks slow.
It's nice to be carried
along
up high near the stars
that look at you with a grave, great
look.
: :

Every night
mama sings you to sleep.
When she sings, O for the
light of thine eyes Dolores,
there's a castle on a cliff
and the sea
roars like lions.
It leaps at the castle
and the cliff knocks it down

but always the sea
shakes its flattened head
and gets up again.

The castle has no roof
so the rain spins silvery webs in it,
and
Dolores' face
floats dim and beautiful
the way flowers do when
they are drowned.
Step by white step
she goes up the castle stairs,

but the stair goes up into the sky
and the sky keeps going up too,

and none of them ever get there.
When mama sings Ba ba black sheep,
the stars seem to shine through
her voice
so everything has to be still,
and when she has finished
singing
her song goes up off the earth,
higher and higher...
till it is
only as big as a tiny silver bird
with nothing but moonlight around it.
IV
BETTY
You can see the sandhills from our new room.
Butterflies
live in the
sandhills
and lizards
and centipedes.
If you keep very still

lizards will think you a stone
and run over your lap.
Butterflies'
liveries
are scarlet and black.
They drive chariots in air.
People in
the chariots
are pale as dew--
you can see right through them--
but
the chariots
are made of gold of the sun.
They go up to heaven


and never catch fire.
There are green centipedes
and brown
centipedes
and black centipedes,
because green and brown and
black
are the colors in hell's flag.
Centipedes
have hundreds of
feet
because it is so far from hell
to come up for air.
Centipedes

do not hurry.
They are waiting for the last day
when they will creep
over the false prophets
who will have their hands tied.
: :
Night calls to the sandhills
and gathers them