Day's Poem, 14

Selections from "Some Simple Measures in the American Idiom and the Variable Foot" by William Carlos Williams

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II. HISTIOLOGY

There is
the
microscopic
anatomy

of
the whale
this is
reassuring


IV. THE BLUE JAY

It crouched
just before the take-off

caught
in the cinematograph--

in motion
of the mind wings

just set to spread a
flash a

blue curse
a memory of you

my friend
shrieked at me

--serving art
as usual


VI. A SALAD FOR THE SOUL

My pleasant soul
we may not be destined to
survive our guts
let's celebrate

what we eject
sometimes
with greatest fervor
I hear it

also from the ladies' room
what ho!
the source
of all delicious salads


VII: CHLOE

The calves of
the young girls legs
when they are well made

knees
lithely built
in their summer clothes

show them
predisposed toward flight
or the dance

the magenta flower
of the
moth-mullen balanced

idly
tilting her weight
from one foot

to the other
shifting
to avoid looking at me

on my way to
mail a letter
smiling to a friend


IX: THE STOLEN PEONIES

What I got out of women
was difficult
to assess Flossie

not you
you lived with me
many years you remember

that year
we had the magnificent
stand of peonies

how happy we were
with them
but one night

they were stolen
we shared the
loss together thinking

of nothing else for
a whole day
nothing could have

brought us closer
we had been
married ten years