POEMS
THREE BILLS
Once at the Plaza, looking out into the park
Past the Colombian ambassador, his wife,
And their two children-past a carriage-driver's
Rusty top hat and brown bearskin rug-
I heard three hundred-thousand-dollar bills
Talking at breakfast. One was male and two were female.
The gray female complained
Of the plantation lent her at St. Vincent
"There at the end of nowhere." The brown stocky male's
Chin beard wagged as he said: "I don't see,
Really, how you can say that of St. Vincent."
"But it is the end of nowhere!"
«St. Vincent?"
"Yes, St. Vincent." "Don't you mean St. Martin?"
"Of
course,
St. Martin. That's what I meant to say, St. Martin!"
The blond female smiled with the remnants of a child's
Smile and said: "What a pity that it's not St. Kitts!"
The bearded male went for a moment to the lavatory
And his wife said in the same voice to her friend:
"We can't stay anywhere. We haven't stayed a month
In one place for the last three years.
He flirts with the yardboys and we have to leave."
Her friend showed that she was sorry; I was sorry
To see that the face of Woodrow Wilson on the blond
Bill-the suffused face about to cry
Or not to cry-was a face that under different
Circumstances would have been beautiful, a woman's.
Randall Jarrell
