✨ Portrait of a Lady

Which shore? ...

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

—William Carlos Williams

Public domain. Photo by Dagmara Dombrovska, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.