#MIDDLEBURY
The Florist Wears Knee-Breeches
Wallace Stevens
My flowers are reflected
In your mind
As you are reflected in your glass.
When you look at them,
There is nothing in your mind
Except the reflections
Of my flowers.
But when I look at them
I see only the reflections
In your mind,
And not my flowers.
It is my desire
To bring roses,
And place them before you
In a white dish.
About this poem
“The Florist Wears Knee-Breeches” was first published in March of 1916 in Others: A Magazine of the New Verse, a New York City-based magazine specializing in modernist poetry and visual art. The poem was posthumously published in the collection “Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1957).
About Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Penn., on Oct. 2, 1879. He is the author of “Ideas of Order” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1935), “The Man with the Blue Guitar” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937) and “The Necessary Angel” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1951). Stevens died on Aug. 2, 1955.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
