Queen Anne’s Lace

Queen-Anne’s Lace

By William Carlos Williams

 

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.