Explore "Young Woman" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ So we have a face / Cupped by tender insolences, / Half repenting insolences / Teasing their own angers. / Then, a tense exuberance / Brushes them away / And burns a humbly erect / Queen upon her face. / This happens in the space / Between a frown and indecision. / Her face becomes forlornly wild, / And a beggarly impatience / Hovers into furtive shame. / All the supplely intricate flame / Vanishes, and leaves no mark. / Her eyes are violently dark / With a hopeless waiting; / Her lips are isolated tatters -- / All that is left of shattered recreating. / Then, as quickly as she fled, / The humble queen returns. / Staring and unappeased / She eyes her crumpled hands.