A Day Off

Well, I’ll go window-shopping in Larousse
for seeds of words. Strangely, they’re not for sale —
you help yourself to what the worlds produce.

Here are the conic sections, there the whales,
the art, the musical instruments, the wigs….

My search is stopped by a picture of the sarigue,
Didelphis, a marsupial of the west,
with young. O Marianne Moore, come, look!

She curves her ‘long prehensile tail’ right back
towards her neck — it’s like the pantograph
of an old tram — the little ones climb on,
lift their own small prehensile tails, attach,
and off they ride to bed. See, one’s
still trying to get on. Wait! Wait for me!