Marianne Moore — 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 crevices—         in and out, illuminating the turquoise sea     of bodies. The water drives a wedge     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     mark 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     evidenced has proved that it can live     on what can not revive         its youth. The sea grows old in it.