To a Snail
The snail, built like a spiral, a cipher, is all but a perfect circle. Decimals, part of the surrounding, so nice, so true to living! Clouds passing over the field, moon tending to night, how we generally define the slopes of minor highways. An urge transforms, vacationing waves deep in silence. The webbed sides of those nails! It grips the bottom edge;
may it stay a while, hiding.
- Marianne Moore