Poems (Marianne Moore)/THE FISH

by Marianne Moore

For works with similar titles, see The Fish.

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 spotlike swift-
  ness
  into the 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
 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.