Six Dollars

whadayas ay?

By Harper Lewis Published 6 months ago • Updated 6 months ago • 1 min read

E.E. Cummings, from Etcetera, The Unpublished Poems (1983)

what I wanta know

is if the kid spent

six dollars,

two for the room and four for the girl

who was not quite

fourteen

until she smiled,

then centuries,

and was it six one-dollar bills,

meticulously counted out,

or perhaps just one

plus a fin?

Or maybe

the kid

had a ten

and the girl twice.

Well, whadayas ay, dear?

Intrusive rhyme bothers me, except as a weapon.

Intertextuality is my passion.

Formalist/ New Critical are my guiding theories.

My words are mine, not a robot’s.

MA English literature, CofC

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