Al Que Quiere!/Invitation

by William Carlos Williams

 

INVITATION

You who had the sense
to choose me such a mother,
you who had the indifference
to create me,
you who went to some pains
to leave hands off me
in the formative stages,—
(I thank you most for that
perhaps)
but you who
with an iron head, first,
fiercest and with strongest love
brutalized me into strength,
old dew-lap,—
I have reached the stage
where I am teaching myself
to laugh.
Come on,
take a walk with me.