Williams: Portrait of a Lady

William Carlos Williams, "Portrait of a Lady" (first published in the Dial, August 1920)

Your thighs are appletrees 
whose blossoms touch the sky. 
Which sky? The sky 
where Watteau hung a lady's 
slipper. Your knees 
are a southern breeze -- or 
a gust of snow. Agh! what 
sort of man was Fragonard? 
-- As if that answered 
anything. -- Ah, yes. Below 
the knees, since the tune 
drops that way, it is 
one of those white summer days, 
the tall grass of your ankles 
flickers upon the shore -- 
Which shore? -- 
the sand clings to my lips -- 
Which shore? 
Agh, petals maybe. How 
should I know? 
Which shore? Which shore? 
-- the petals from some hidden 
appletree -- Which shore? 
I said petals from an appletree. 

Portrait of a Lady" (1920) ventures more openly into erotic contemplation, a subject that embroiled Williams in domestic conflict with his wife, who harbored no illusions about his fidelity. The poet-speaker attempts to locate the source of female loveliness by fluctuating between metaphor and artistic representations of womanhood. Moving downward from thighs to ankles, his mind debates breaching the "shore," a euphemism for propriety (having sex). At the poem's climax in line 15, sand at the lips yanks the admirer earthward. After he returns to the polite abstraction of apple blossom petals, his better judgment urges him to write sedate, nonsexual verse. 

If u want to read several views on this poem read this cite (technical language)

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/williams/lady.htm