Friday's Flowers: Queen Anne's Lace

Her body is not so white as
anemone 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.

William Carlos Williams