POEMS
By 10 o'clock my mother put on her new shirtwaist
And Aunt Essie was there in her black hat with the cherries.
I ran ahead of them, all the way to the corner
Clutching my cap-pistol, ran out of the sun
And
climbed a bench in the little park under the walnuts.
It
must have been time: on the curbs all fathers and mothers,
Even Miss Pitman and her cane, old Mr. Kaull and his pipe,
Baby Shea, the big policeman, in the middle of Broadway.
lust as I caught my sister and pulled out her hair-ribbon
0 then we stood still and amazed, hearing far off
The sweet incredible fife, the murmur of coming drums.
Every now and then a cop on a motorcycle.
But at last over the dust, out of the shade and light,
The Indians rode before us their arrogant horses.
Ah I had no genuine breath for such word made flesh–
The brown torsos, cheekbones, streaked with warpaint,
The head-dresses blowing wide like unfurled turkeys.·
Then came the squaws, then came the little Indians,
And cages with buffalos, wolves, hyenas, coyotes, .
An ancient stage coach waddling, and then the scouts-
The scouts with lashed-leather gloves and buckskin jackets,
Bearing their rifles bravely across their knees,
And then just behind them an old man in an open carriage.
Old, old Buffalo Bill, bowing and smiling,
Lifting his hat from his long white hair, and riding
Right up Broadway in a little yellow-wheeled cart.
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