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Marianne Moore - Peter
Work rating: Low

Strong and slippery, built for the midnight grass-party confronted by four cats,
         he sleeps his time away — the detached first claw on his foreleg which corresponds
         to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds
             or katydid legs above each eye, still numbering the units in each group;
                 the shadbones regularly set about his mouth, to droop or rise

     in unison like the porcupine`s quills — motionless. He lets himself be flat­
         tened out by gravity, as it were a piece of seaweed tamed and weakened by
         exposure to the sun; compelled when extended, to lie
             stationary. Sleep is the result of his delusion that one must do as
               well as one can for oneself; sleep — epitome of what is to

   him as to the average person, the end of life. Demonstrate on him how
       the lady caught the dangerous southern snake, placing a forked stick on either
       side of its innocuous neck; one need not try to stir
           him up; his prune shaped head and alligator eyes are not a party to the
               joke. Lifted and handled, he may be dangled like an eel or set

   up on the forearm like a mouse; his eyes bisected by pupils of a pin`s
       width, are flickeringly exhibited, then covered up. May be? I should say,
       might have been; when he has been got the better of in a 
           dream — as in a fight with nature or with cats — we all know it. Profound sleep is
               not with him, a fixed illusion. Springing about with froglike ac­

   curacy, emitting jerky cries when taken in the hand, he is himself
       again; to sit caged by the rungs of a domestic chair would be unprofit­
       able — human. What is the good of hypocrisy? It
           is permissible to choose one`s employment, to abandon the wire nail, the
               roly-poly, when it shows signs of being no longer a pleas­

   ure, to score the adjacent magazine with a double line of strokes. He can
       talk, but insolently says nothing. What of it? When one is frank, one`s very
       presence is a compliment. It is clear that he can see
           the virtue of naturalness, that he is one of those who do not regard
               the published fact as a surrender. As for the disposition

   invariably to affront, an animal with claws wants to have to use
       them; that eel-like extension of trunk into tail is not an accident. To
       leap, to lengthen out, divide the air — to purloin, to pursue.
           to tell the hen: fly over the fence, go in the wrong way — in your perturba­
               tion — this is life; to do less would be nothing but dishonesty.
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