The Puzzle Is No Puzzle

A card table in the library stands ready To receive the puzzle which keeps never coming. Daylight shines in or lamplight down Upon the tense oasis of green felt. Full of unfulfillment, life goes on, Mirage arisen from time's trickling sands Or fallen piecemeal into place: German lesson, picnic, see-saw, walk With the collie who 'did everything but talk' — Sour windfalls of the orchard back of us. A summer without parents is the puzzle, Or should be. But the boy, day after day, Writes in his Line-a-Day No puzzle. When the puzzle finally arrives, after days of waiting, it is described in detail: Out of the blue, as promised, of a New York Puzzle-rental shop the puzzle comes — A superior one, containing a thousand hand-sawn, Sandal-scented pieces. Many take shapes known already — the craftsman's repertoire nice in its limitation — from other puzzles: Witch on broomstick, ostrich, hourglass, Even (not surely just in retrospect) An inchling, innocently-branching palm.