Early Lessons, Tardily Learned Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

some people are tygers

but not the radiant kind

made of butter rum candy

in the picture book sunshine

oh maybe you think you're fine

at the sugar time tea time

behaving and behaving-

a sudden lunge in the conversation

on a pink and customary occasion

plunges you out into the garden

sunflower blind and weeping

the pupils enlarged to take it in

while the guardians were sleeping;

while the fairy tales mourn: alas and alack;

the miseries and

the switchback tracks.

mary angela douglas 19 july 2022.13 march 2023