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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  William Carlos Williams

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Apology

William Carlos Williams

WHY do I write today?

The beauty of

The terrible faces

Of our nonentities

Stirs me to it:

Colored women

Day workers,

Old and experienced,

Returning home at dusk

In cast-off clothing,

Faces like

Old Florentine oak.

Also

The set pieces

Of your faces stir me—

Leading citizens:

But not

In the same way.