Alfred Kreymborg, ed. Others for 1919. 1920.
Marianne Moore
Dock Rats
T
as craftily as we do—who seem to feel that it is a
good place to come home to. On what a river;
wide—twinkling like a chopped sea under some
of the finest shipping in the
battleship like the two-thirds submerged section of
an iceberg; the tug—strong-moving thing, dip-
ping and pushing, the bell striking as it comes; the
steam yacht, lying like a new made arrow on the
each compartment, making a row of chessmen set
for play. When the wind is from the east, the
smell is of apples; of hay, the aroma increased and
decreased suddenly as the wind changes;
from the west, it is an elixir. There is oc-
casionally a parokeet
arrived from Brazil, clasping and clawing; or a
monkey—tail and feet in readiness for an over-
the sea, moving the bulkhead with its horse
strength; and the multiplicity of rudders and pro-
pellors; the signals, shrill, questioning, per-
emptory, diverse; the wharf cats and the barge dogs—it
One does not live in such a place from motives of
expediency but because to one who has been ac-
customed to it, shipping is the most congenial thing in the world.