The Thinker

William Carlos Williams, 1883 – 1963

My wife’s new pink slippers

have gay pom-poms.

There is not a spot or a stain

on their satin toes or their sides.

All night they lie together

under her bed’s edge.

Shivering I catch sight of them

and smile, in the morning.

Later I watch them

descending the stair,

hurrying through the doors

and round the table,

moving stiffly

with a shake of their gay pom-poms!

And I talk to them

in my secret mind

out of pure happiness.

Actually, my wife detests pink, and prefers striped socks to slippers. This poem is a masterful love-poem, without all that yucky mushy stuff of hearts and cupids. It captures how I feel about her.