For the Poem Paterson [3. St. Valentine]

A woman's breasts
for beauty
A man's delights
for charm

The rod and cups
of duty
to stave us
from harm!

A woman's eyes
a woman's 
thighs and a man's
straight look:

Cities rotted to
pig-sties
will stand up by
that book!

From The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Copyright © 1988 by Christopher MacGowan. Reprinted with permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.