The Paper Nautilus

The photograph of an eye, its nature not to look forth, crimson and brown, fierce, is placed in dark, liquid rose.

It cannot be recorded whole, for you are yet a child, an abduction of our hand from being. But a spirit shades its depth, its margins are soft.

Luminous in little winding trails, its stirrings awash with silk, its glow of moisture comes by evening. It says it is a sea, yet it pounds, and crinkling, it snaps and unravels.

So it seems that you are opaque, yet you spring forth from underminess, whittled by the sea, you still flee before us. You bend and swim into the dark, your reflection brightened by echoes.

Will you, with your subtly jargon, drive us by charred voices to indulge your childishness, become volcanic in desire, and spring within? No eye escapes unscathed.

• Marianne Moore