Sonnet in Search of an Author

Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off a sweetest
odor, man and woman

under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of

aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it

Might be made of it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of no odor
other than trailing woodbine that

has no odor, odor of a nude woman
sometimes, odor of a man.
William  Carlos Williams, "Sonnet in Search of an Author" from Pictures from Brueghel. Copyright © 1962 by William  Carlos Williams.  Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Pictures from Brueghel (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1962)
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