THE FISH

wade
through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one
keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
opening and shutting itself like

an
injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side
of the wave, cannot hide
there for the submerged shafts of
the

sun,
split like spun
glass, move themselves with spotlight
swiftness
into the crevices -
in and out, illuminating

the
turquise sea
of bodies. The water drives a wedage
of iron through the iron edge
of the cliff; whereupon the stars,

pink
rice-grains, ink
bespattered jelly-fish, crabs like green
lilies, and submarine
toadstools, slide each on the other.

All
external
marks of abuse are present on this
defiant edifice -
all the physical features of

ac-
cident-lack
of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
hatchet strokes, these things stand
out on it; the chasm-side is

dead
Repeated
evidence has proved that it can live
on what cannot revive
its youth. The sea grows old in it.

Marianne Moore (1887-1972)