"In Mind"

In Mind
Denise Levertov

There's in my mind a woman

of innocence, unadorned but

fair-featured, and smelling of

apples or grass.  She wears

a utopian smock or shift, her hair

is light brown and smooth, and she

is kind and very clean without

ostentation---

              but she has

no imagination.

               And there's a

turbulent moon-ridden girl

or old woman, or both,

dressed in opals and rags, feathers

and torn taffeta,

who knows strange songs---

but she is not kind.

 


Rote Cocotte, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, c.1914