Thursday, May 10, 2007
from WIlliam Carlos Williams * :
Portrait of a Lady
Your thighs are appletrees whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky where Watteau hung a lady's slipper. Your knees are a southern breeze--or a gust of snow. Agh! what sort of man was Fragonard? --as if that answered anything. Ah, yes--below the knees, since the tune drops that way, it is one of those white summer days, the tall grass of your ankles flickers upon the shore-- Which shore?-- the sand clings to my lips-- Which shore? Agh, petals maybe. How should I know? Which shore? Which shore? I said petals from an appletree.
(1920, 1934)
* The Norton Anthology of Poetry, eds. Margaret Ferguson et al (New York, 2005), 1273.
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