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)