On the Work Ethic

It's not so much that you subscribe to it

As that you were enlisted in its rolls

From birth and knew you must find work and do it

As soon as you had finished playing dolls

(Although you still think wistfully of the one

With clear blue eyes and thick, black eyelashes,

Who'd wet her gown and cry until the moon

Turned off its light and left the window sashes

To shiver through a night of wind and snow.

Your doll was now fast asleep, dreaming of

Places she'd like, when she grew up, to go

In Santa's sleigh, which had paused on the roof

Of this tenement long enough to leave

You the windfall gift of a child to love).