I had an interesting journey around my brain this afternoon. It all started with Eli's comment on facebook that he was going to go around the house naked now that rest of the family was out of town. I somehow turned that into dance around the house naked and wanted to send him the poem about that guy who dances around the house naked when his family is out of town.

I immediately thought the poem was by William Carlos Williams. (It, in fact, is.) The speaker does dance around the house naked. There is a line that implies being the master of the domain, except the actual line is "happy genius of my household." If you google combos of master/domain/poetry/dance/naked, you ain't going to get to Danse Russe.

So, then I started thinking maybe it was by Wendell Berry or Wallace Stevens. I had this gut feeling of short lines, imagist, and the name started with W.

Two hours later I remembered he wasn't alone in the house; the rest of the family was sleeping, and with some google wiggling I finally got to the poem below.

Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?