Explore "The Ogre" by William Carlos Williams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sweet child, / little girl with well shaped legs / you cannot touch the thoughts / I put over and under and around you.
This is fortunate for they would / burn you to an ash otherwise.
Your petals would be quite curled up.
This is all beyond you -- no doubt, / yet you do feel the brushings / of the fine needles; / the tentative lines of your whole body / prove it to me; / so does your fear of me, / your shyness; / likewise the toy baby cart / that you are pushing -- / and besides, mother has begun / to dress your hair in a knot.
These are my excuses.