Queen-Ann's-Lace

Listen to:

Queen-Ann's-Lace (:58)

by William Carlos Williams

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

QUEEN-ANN'S-LACE

  Her body is not so white as
  anemony petals nor so smooth--nor
  so remote a thing. It is a field
  of the wild carrot taking
  the field by force; the grass
  does not raise above it.
  Here is no question of whiteness,
  white as can be, with a purple mole
  at the center of each flower.
  Each flower is a hand's span
  of her whiteness. Wherever
  his hand has lain there is
  a tiny purple blemish. Each part
  is a blossom under his touch
  to which the fibres of her being
  stem one by one, each to its end,
  until the whole field is a
  white desire, empty, a single stem,
  a cluster, flower by flower,
  a pious wish to whiteness gone over--
  or nothing.