A Precise Woman
A Precise Woman - meaning Summary
Order and Desire Contrasted
The poem observes a woman whose precise appearance and habits impose order on the speaker’s thoughts and belongings. Her body and emotions are described as neatly divided and arranged; even her cries follow a repetitive, catalogued sequence. This disciplined control contrasts with the speaker’s own orientation toward intimacy, signaled by his shoes pointing toward the bed while hers point away. The poem explores tension between control and desire.
Read Complete AnalysesA precise woman with a short haircut brings order to my thoughts and my dresser drawers, moves feelings around like furniture into a new arrangement. A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided into upper and lower, with weather-forecast eyes of shatterproof glass. Even her cries of passion follow a certain order, one after the other: tame dove, then wild dove, then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock, the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove thrush, thrush, thrush. A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet her shoes always point away from the bed. (My own shoes point toward it.)
Feel free to be first to leave comment.