Countrywomen
These be two
Country women.
What a size!
Great big arms
And round red faces;
Big substantial
Sit down places;
Great big bosoms firm as cheese
Bursting through their country jackets;
Wide big laps
And sturdy knees;
Hands outspread,
Round and rosy,
Hands to hold
A country posy
Or a baby or a lamb—
And such eyes!
Stupid, shifty, small and sly
Peeping through a slit of sty,
Squinting through their neighbours’ plackets.
Copyright Credit: Katherine Mansfield, “Countrywomen,” from Poems (London: Constable, 1923 and New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924).