You come from Sri Lanka, Said the toy-shop keeper at Patti's Settlement, I know, your skin Tones are different from Indian, Not brown, a kind of slate, And you have that gentleman's gait -- When we lived in Virginia, My son's pediatrician Was Tamil from Sri Lanka And finely made, his face Has stayed imprinted On my brain for twenty years -- Here most toys come from China, American labor is too expensive, But the dolls in the back, Fashioned in Ohio, weigh as much As real babies . . . That seahorse Is not as heavy as the rest, If that's what you want, Two dollars ninety-nine Will be enough, and that Train for the tree, it's nothing At all, a dime . . . Twenty years Is a long time. Come back again. http://www.middlebury.edu/~nereview | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WAPENTAKE; TO ALFRED TENNYSON by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE MARCH INTO VIRGINIA by HERMAN MELVILLE MONT DE CASSEL by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN LOVE IN THE GUISE OF FRIENDSHIP by ROBERT BURNS THE COMING OF THE WORDS by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON HOW BARRE, VERMONT, WAS NAMED by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY MASQUE AT THE MARRIAGE OF THE LORD HAYES: TO JAMES KING OF BRITAIN by THOMAS CAMPION TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE by EDWARD CARPENTER |