Tender Buttons [Milk] by Gertrude Stein | Poets.org


January 20, 2013 · 8:31 PM

Tender Buttons [Milk]

A white egg and a colored pan and a cabbage

showing settlement, a constant increase.

 

A cold in a nose, a single cold nose makes an excuse.

Two are more necessary.

 

All the goods are stolen, all the blisters are in the cup.

 

Cooking, cooking is the recognition between sudden

and nearly sudden very little and all large holes.

 

A real pint, one that is open and closed and in the

middle is so bad.

 

Tender colds, seen eye holders, all work, the best of

change, the meaning, the dark red, all this and

bitten, really bitten.

 

Guessing again and golfing again and the best men,

the very best men.

 

Stein's home, 27 rue de Fleurus, was a gathering spot for many young artists and writers including Henri Matisse, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, and Guillaume Apollinaire. Sherwood Anderson wrote that her writing "consists in a rebuilding, and entire new recasting of life, in the city of words."

 

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