What's O'Clock/Orientation

by Amy Lowell

ORIENTATION

When the young ladies of the boarding-school take the air,
They walk in pairs, each holding a blush-red parasol against the sun.
From my window they look like an ambulating parterre
Of roses, I cannot tell one from one.

There is a certain young person I dream of by night,
And paint by day on little two-by-three inch squares
Of ivory. Which is she? Which of all the parasols in sight
Covers the blithe, mocking face which stares;
At me from twenty miniatures, confusing the singleness of my delight?

You know my window well enough—the fourth from the corner. Oh, you know.
Slant your parasol a bit this way, if you please,
And take for yourself the very correct bow
I make toward the line of demure young ladies
Perambulating the street in a neat row.
It is true I have never seen beneath your parasol,
Therefore my miniatures resemble one another not at all.

You must pick yourself like a button-hole bouquet,
And lift the parasol to my face one day,
And let me see you laughing at the sun—
Or at me. Then I will choose the one
Of my twenty miniatures most like you
And destroy the others, with which I shall have nothing more to do.