Queen's Ann's Lace

Sour Grapes (1921)

Queen’s Ann’s Lace

Her body is not so white asanemone petals nor so smooth—norso remote a thing. It is a fieldof the wild carrot takingthefield by force; the grassdoes not raise above it.Here is no question of whiteness,white as can be, with a purple moleat the center of each flower.Each flower is a hand’s spanof her whiteness. Whereverhis hand has lain there isa tiny purple blossom under his touchto which the fibres of her beingstem one by one, each to its end,until the whole field is awhite desire, empty, a single stem,a cluster, flower by flower,a pious wish to whiteness gone over—or nothing.

“Queen Anne’s Lace” Sour Grapes (1921)