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.