Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SUSIE by ANN HAMILTON (1902-)

First Line: DOWN BY THE RIVER-FRONT, BESIDE THE DOCKS
Last Line: THAT SUSIE POSED FOR WHEN SHE WAS IN BLOOM.
Subject(s): AGING; PROSTITUTION; HARLOTS; WHORES; BROTHELS;

Down by the river-front, beside the docks,
Susie scrubs in a quick lunch bummer's hole.
She steals the money from the cashier's box,
Being too ugly now to steal his soul.
Susie's a used-up whiskey-dyed old shoddy --
Once she drew encores in the cabarets
And sculptors sought her for her lovely body,
So she did posing on her vacant days.
Now when she shuffles past the wharves to work
The sailors when they see her turn away
And some make jokes at her Saint Vitus jerk
And others give her nickels from their pay.
Yet there's a bronze nymph in a museum room
That Susie posed for when she was in bloom.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net