By William Carlos Williams
via the Poetry Foundation
If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,β
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
βI am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!β
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,β
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
A Note from the Editor
William Carlos Williams was born on this day in 1883.
Source: In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers ( Stillhouse Press, 2022 )
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