Portrait of a Lady

William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)



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?
-- the petals from some hidden
appletree -- Which shore?
I said petals from an appletree.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

35 sec read
827

Quick analysis:

Scheme abbaacdeefgaaacCaChfcicc
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 590
Words 116
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 24

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was a Latino-American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. more…

All William Carlos Williams poems | William Carlos Williams Books

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