The Poster Girl

From “Idle Idyls”

THE BLESSED Poster Girl leaned out

From a pinky-purple heaven;

One eye was red and one was green;

Her bang was cut uneven;

She had three fingers on her hand,

And the hairs on her head were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No sunflowers did adorn;

But a heavy Turkish portière

Was very neatly worn;

And the hat that lay along her back

Was yellow like canned corn.

It was a kind of wobbly wave

That she was standing on,

And high aloft she flung a scarf

That must have weighed a ton;

And she was rather tall—at least

She reached up to the sun.

She curved and writhed, and then she said,

Less green of speech than blue:

“Perhaps I am absurd—perhaps

I don’t appeal to you;

But my artistic worth depends

Upon the point of view.”

I saw her smile, although her eyes

Were only smudgy smears;

And then she swished her swirling arms,

And wagged her gorgeous ears;

She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob,

And wept some purple tears.