:  : 

There is no one to play with and the flies on the window buzz and buzz... ...you can pull out their legs and stick pins in their bodies but still they buzz... and mama says:  When Nero was a little boy he caught flies on his mama’s window and pulled out their legs and stuck pins in their bodies and nobody loved him.  Buzz, blue-bellied flies—­ buzz, nasty black wheel of mama’s machine—­ you are the biggest fly of all—­ you have the loudest buzz.  I hear you at dawn before the locusts.  But I like the picture of the Flood and the little babies getting drowned....  If I were there I would save them, but as I can’t save them I like to watch them getting drowned.

     :  : 

When mama buys of Ling Ho, he smiles very wide and picks her the largest loquots.  The greens-man gave her a cabbage and she held it against her black bodice and said what a beautiful green it was and put it on the table as though it had been a flower.  But next day we boiled and ate it with salt.  It was our dinner.

     :  : 

Christmas day
I found Janie on my pillow. 
Janie is made of rubber. 
Her red and blue jacket won’t come off. 
Christmas dinner was green and white
chicken and lettuce and peas
and drops of oil on the salad
smiley and full of light
like the gold on the lady’s teeth.

But mama said politely
Thank you, we are dining out. 
She wouldn’t let you take one pea
to put in the hole where the whistle was
at the back of Janie’s head,
so Janie should have some dinner
So you went to the park with biscuits
and black tea in a bottle.

     :  : 

You feel very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight.  The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too.  You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks—­ till she is swallowed up.  But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn’t come back?  Suppose it were to drop out of the string of white faces like the pearl out of my chain I never found again?

     :  : 

Mabel minds you while mama is out,
she washes while she sings
Three blind mice!
they all run away from the farmer’s wife
who cut off their tails
with a carving knife—­
Wind blows out Mabel’s sheets,
way you blow in a bag before you burst it. 
Wind has a soapy smell. 
It’s heavier’n sun
that lies all over you without any weight
and makes you feel happy
and crinkly like bubbling water. 
There’s no sun on the empty house—­
sly-looking house—­
you can’t see in its windows
that watch you out of their corners. 
Perhaps there’s a big spider there
spinning gray threads over the windows
till they look like dead people’s faces.... 
Jimmie says: 
Jimmie’s hair is white as a white mouse. 
His lashes are gold as mama’s wedding ring
and his mouth feels cool and smooth
like a flower wet with rain. 
You wouldn’t believe Jimmie was different...
     till he showed you....