TOMBOY
When your brother, or your cousin,
Starts a fight inside the yard,
You decide that you should help him;
"Bop!" you sock the fellow hard.
But alas you get a shiner
That will be the real McCoy,
And you grit your teeth and mutter,
"How I wish I were a boy."
When your mom and daddy catch you,
With a pair of battered knees,
Playing with a frog and lizard,
Walking fences, climbing trees,
They attempt again to coax you
To be ladylike and coy;
When you answer, "Brother does it!"
They relpy, "But he's a boy."
Then you go to church on Sunday;
(Oh, you like the Sunday School,)
Mother has you looking pretty
In a frock both new and cool,
When a handsome looking fellow
Smiles as you adjust a curl,
Then just keeps on looking at you,
Gee, you're glad to be a girl.
(Juvenile Aware, Poetry Society of Texas, April, 1950)
STRICTLY ELEVEN
"Too short," she sighed in small dismay,
"Why must I be so small?
No one, just no one I know
Thinks I'm grown up at all.
"I'll prove it, watch; Waitress, how old
Would you think me to be?"
"Let's see, oh seven or eight, I guess."
"Ah ha, see Mother see.
"And what grade do you think I'm in?"
"The third or fourth, I guess."
"Well I'm eleven and in the sixth....
Gee Whiz such fickleness."
She lifted her hamburger top,
Took one whole pickle slice
And thought it masticated well
By chomping once or twice.
The hiccups came but she felt no
Embarrassment at that;
She swung her old high heels in tune
And propped her elbows flat
Upon the table top. The world
Is really sort of mean
For thinking her seven or eight
Instead of near sixteen.
(Juvenile Poem Award, Poetry Society of Texas, December, 1957
PRAYER AT TWILIGHT
"Our Father, 'ch art in heaven,"
She fell upon her knee,
With eyelids faintly fluttering,
And chanted childishly.
She pressed her palms so lightly
Beneath her chin and then,
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,"
She shifted knees again.
"Give us our daily bread,"
One eye popped open there.
"And lead us not in tementation,
See, I can pray my prayer.
"Deliver us from evil;
That means like when we're mean,
For thine is the knigdom come, oh no,"
She paused in mild chagrin.
Her eyelids wavered open
And suddenly she said,
"For Thine is the glory forevermore
Amen can I have some bread?"
GEE WHIZ
Mom, Why is Jo so mad at me?
She looked at me so mean;
Gee Whiz, I hope I'm not that cross
When I get seventeen.
Anyhow, I don't see why
Her face should get so red;
I asked him if he liked her much
And that is all I said.
She didn't have to pinch so hard
When I said Bob was sweet
And he liked Jo and I liked him.
But I was fond of Pete.
I guess I'll ask here why she's mad,
While Jimmy still is here.
Ouch! you're hurting, Mom, let go.
Gee whiz, you've got my ear.