NAMES

As a child my mother knew all the original names:
Frances Gumm; Archibald Leech;
Julius, Adolph, Leonard, Milton and Herbert ...
The list, so far as I could ever tell, was endless.
Her own displeased her. It came to her used
The former property of her own mother --
Killed by an icy step and complications
Of giving birth three months early --
So she experimented. She had a library card
Made out to Jane. She thought of joining
All the Theresas in her family or becoming Isobel
Because a nearsighted girl once called her that.
She always intended to her own self to be true
Once she discovered who that was.

SPOT, RUN

My first grade reader
Did not star Dick and Jane
But their less-successful rivals
Alice and Jerry. Their dog
Was called Spot. I gather
This was the law back then;
If a dog called Mumford
Or a cat named Ebeneezer
Came wandering in, Alice,
A dead shot with a .45,
Had her instructions.