Love

To a Small Boy Standing on my Shoes

 To a Small Boy Standing on my Shoes 
While I am Wearing Them      
Ogden Nash

Let’s straighten this out, my little man,  
And reach an agreement if we can.  
I entered your door as an honored guest.  
My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,  
And I won’t stretch out and read you the funnies  
And I won’t pretend that we’re Easter bunnies.  
If you must get somebody down on the floor,  
What in the hell are your parents for?  
I do not like the things that you say  
And I hate the games that you want to play.  
No matter how frightfully hard you try,  
We’ve little in common, you and I.  
The interest I take in my neighbor’s nursery  
Would have to grow, to be even cursory,  
And I would that performing sons and nephews  
Were carted away with the daily refuse,  
And I hold that frolicsome daughters and nieces  
Are ample excuse for breaking leases.  
You may take a sock at your daddy’s tummy  
Or climb all over your doting mummy,  
But keep your attentions to me in check,  
Or, sonny boy, I will wring your neck.  
A happier man today I’d be  
Had someone wrung it ahead of me.