Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BUTTERANDEGGS, by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BUTTERANDEGGS, by                 Poet's Biography
First Line: It is a posture for two multiplied
Last Line: Something else.
Subject(s): Conduct Of Life


It is a posture for two multiplied
into a bouquet, a kneeling mother
washing the feet of her naked infant
before crossed mirrors, shoes of
different pairs, a chinaman laughing
at a nigger, a maple mingling leaves
with an elm, it is butter and eggs:
yellow slippers with orange bows to them,
chickens and pigs in a barnyard,
not too important -- the little double
favors, you and I, a shirt
handed to a naked man by his
barelegged wife, scratch my back
for me, oh and empty the slopbucket
when you go down -- and get me
that flower, I can't reach it.
A low greyleaved thing
growing in clusters, how else? --
with a swollen head -- slippers for sale,
they put mirrors in those stores
to make it seem -- Closely packed
in a bouquet but never quite succeeding
to be more than -- a passageway to
something else.





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