Ferlinghetti's assumption of so much gripping being done by the couple, brings him under the power of the painting to imply rather than depict outright the physical unity of the man and woman in the painting. Upon close inspection, the painting does not sustain such a case for physical contact as Ferlinghetti is making. In relying upon the couple's suggested physical union to make an argument against it, Ferlinghetti weakens the story he is trying to imply. Both of these descriptions support the poet's argument for the man's locomotive power and the woman's passivity. The harlequin robe denotes the Commedia Dell'arte, comic hero and his flashy movements on stage.
Quilted garments evoke a feeling of heaviness, of warm coats or robes, and of blankets.
Ferlinghetti is stretching his poetic license and placing too much faith in the reader's willingness to agree with his assumptions about the painting. The man's robe is indeed made of blocks of dark and gold, but it is hardly a harlequin garment in the traditional sense of the word, and the connotation of harlequin hardly conjures up the figure of forceful intensity that Ferlinghetti paints the man with in other parts of the poem. Anyone familiar with textiles can see that there is little chance that the woman's garment is quilted- cutting a garment with the kind of drape and flow that hers has is nearly impossible when using quilted fabrics. Ferlinghetti also fails to acknowledge the unifying quality of the couple's garments. Though he differentiates between the two garments, describing the man's in terms of angularity and light and dark and the woman's in terms of fruit and curves, he fails to mention the fact that it is difficult to tell where one garment leaves off and another begins.