Beyond Debate
Out from the wrought-iron gate
Miss Perdee drives in state;
Miss Perdee wears the thin smile
And the sleeves of 1888.
Miss Perdee’s face is stifled as a sonnet;
Upon her wire-tight hair a duck-shaped bonnet
Nests, nodding with a cachepeigne
Of violets on it.
East Bay, some tea and talk, them home by King.
The horses have an antiquated plod;
The team is old, but not too old to balk
If driven north of Broad.
Miss Perdee wears the sure air of a queen,
Which only queens and Perdees can achieve.
The Perdees had blue blood in Adam’s veins
When Adam had the rib he gave to Eve.
Back through the wrought-iron gate
Miss Perdee drives in state.
Miss Perdee lives down on the Battery!
Beyond debate.
H.A.