THE YOUNG HOUSEWIFE
At ten A.M. the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband's house.
I pass solitary in my car.
Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of hair, and I compare her
to a fallen leaf.
The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling Sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.
-- William Carlos Williams
***This poem is taken from The Collected Poems of William
Carlos Williams (Volume I: 1909-1939), edited
by A. Walton Litz and Christopher
MacGowan (New York: New Directions, 1986)