MARIANNE MOORE
might I, if you can find it, be given
a chameleon with tail
that curls like a watch spring; and vertical
on the body—including the face—pale
tiger-stripes, about seven
(the melanin in the skin
having been shaded from the sun by thin
bars; the spinal dome
beaded along the ridge
as if it were platinum)?*
If you can find no striped chameleon,
might I have a dress or suit—
I guess you have heard of it—of qiviut?
And, to wear with it, a taslon shirt, the drip-dry fruit of research second to none,
sewn, I hope, by Excello,
as for buttons to keep down the collar-points, no.
The shirt could be white—and be “worn before six,”
either in daylight or at night.
But don’t give me, if I can’t have the dress,
a trip to Greenland, or grim
trip to the moon. The moon should come here. Let him make the trip down, spread on my dark floor some dim marvel, and if a success
that I stoop to pick up and wear,
I could ask nothing more. A thing yet more rare,
though, and different,
would be this: Hans von Marées’
St. Hubert, kneeling with head bent,
form erect—in velvet, tense with restraint—
hand hanging down; the horse, free.
Not the original, of course. Give me
a postcard of the scene—huntsman and divinity—
hunt-mad Hubert startled into a saint
by a stag with a Figure entined.
But why tell you what you must have divined?
Saint Nicholas, O Santa Claus,
would it not be the most
prized gift that ever was!
1958