Portrait

III

by E.E. Cummings

between nose-red gross

walls       sprawling with tipsy

tables the abominable

floor belches smoky

5  

laughter into the filigree

frame of a microscopic

stage whose jouncing curtain.     , rises

upon one startling doll

undressed in unripe green with

10  

nauseous spiderlegs

and excremental

hair and the eyes of the mother of

god who spits seeds of dead

song about home and love from her

15  

transfigured face a queer

pulp of ecstacy

while in the battered

bodies the odd unlovely

souls struggle       slowly       and       writhe

20  

like caught.brave:flies;








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Transcribed and formatted for Internet reading, with addition of line numbers, from the 1923 (Thomas Seltzer, Inc.) hardcover edition of Tulips and Chimneys by E.E. Cummings.