"The Centaur" is a reflective poem about an imaginative hand made toy, the stick horse, with an allusion to Greek mythology. The poem has a reflective nature, which can be seen in the childlike reminiscing by the author to days when she played with a stick horse. The image of a centaur is used as the poem's motif, and the point of view is that of a ten-year-old girl. Simple and childlike language is also used in contrast to adult language, which is italicized in the poem.

May Swenson, the author, looks back at a childhood game where she played with a stick horse. She looks back with the exuberance of her youth. This reflective nature shows that the stick horse was a treasured item of her childhood. Swenson cherishes the summer she played with the stick horse. She says, "Can it be there was only one summer...