Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Woman

December 15, 2013 2 Comments by willcrimson Erotica

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Woman

William Crimson

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I

In the traffic of twenty city blocks
The only moving thing
Were the hips of a woman.

II

I was of one mind
Like the gait
Of a woman comprised of insurmountable gestures.

III

The girl’s black hair whirled in the autumn winds.
The wind was a small part of her pantomime.

IV

A girl and a woman
Are one;
A girl a woman and a centerfold
Are one.

V

I don’t know which to prefer
The inflections of the woman arriving
Or the innuendos of the woman departing
Her lips before
Or just after.

VI

Sunlight brazed the long floorboards
With a barbed light.
The shadow of the woman
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Plied by the shadow
An indecipherable desire.

VII

O grinning men of Stoneham,
You who dream under the quarried sinew.
Did you not see the blackbird
That leapt
From the thighs of the women about you?

VIII

I build foundations
And stately, imperturbable edifices
But I know
That the woman is not to be contained
By what I build.

IX

When the girl jumped rope
She marked
One more among her dilative circles.

X

At the sight of women
Naked under the green half-moon
The bawds of euphony
Have always cried out sharply.

XI

She rose over Connecticut
In a glass tender.
Once, she was not surprised,
When she mistook
The shadow of her equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

A blackbird sings.
It is possible a woman moves among the reeds.

XIII

Evening was in her hair all
Afternoon. Snow
Was in her skin and her red lips incontestable.
Blackbirds
Waited in her eyes.

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• In the event that readers are not familiar with the poetry of Wallace Stevens, and to prevent the accusation that I have stolen from Stevens, I confess that I have. This poem, or response, or creative critique, is based on Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

Categories: Erotica, Poetry, RedBud