Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DAUGHTER AT ARITHMETIC, by DOROTHY MCFARLANE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DAUGHTER AT ARITHMETIC, by                    
First Line: Difficult as it is, she sits
Last Line: Most girls detest arithmetic.
Subject(s): Girls


Difficult as it is, she sits
Dividing numbers into bits,
Sucks the eraser, hums off key,
Figures with brief intensity.
Outside the day is lush with spring,
Sunshines and the crickets sing,
The dog barks and a train goes by
Brushing smoke along the sky.
Silence in the house is fat
And somnolent; the mother cat
Walks slowly past, her tail a plume,
To kittens in another room.
The chairs are sober, curtains fall
Neatly by windows, on the wall
The pattern of the paper goes
In quaint shapes, here a ship, a rose . . .
She starts, and guilty, looks around
But dreaming has not made a sound.
She writes again, then drums upon
The table, but her heart has gone
From working -- she can't make it stick --
Most girls detest arithmetic.





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