Williams, in his portrait, like Moore, utilizes the Renaissance convention of the beauty depicted by her parts:

Your thighs are appletrees 

whose blossoms touch the sky . . . .

 

               Your knees 

are a southern breeze—or 

a gust of snow . . . .

 

        Ah yes—below 

the knees, since the tune 

drops that way, it is 

one of those white summer days, 

the tall grass of your ankles 

flickers upon the shore . . . . (35)

In the quixotic last line of the poem—"I said petals from an appletree"—the speaker unequivocally asserts his presence over the parts, for it is he who "says" them (36).

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From "Gender in Marianne Moore's Art: Can'ts and Refusals." Sagtrieb. Vol. 6, No. 3