The Paper Nautilus

For authorities whose hopes

are shaped by mercenaries?

  Writers entrapped by

  teatime fame and by

commuters' comforts?  Not for these

  the paper nautilus

  constructs her thin glass shell.

  Giving her perishable

souvenir of hope, a dull

  white outside and smooth-

  edged inner surface

glossy as the sea, the watchful

  maker of it guards it

  day and night; she scarcely

  eats until the eggs are hatched.

Buried eight-fold in her eight

  arms, for she is in

  a sense a devil-

fish, her glass ram'shorn-cradled freight

  is hid but is not crushed;

  as Hercules, bitten

  by a crab loyal to the hydra,

was hindered to succeed,

  the intensively

  watched eggs coming from

the shell free it when they are freed,—

  leaving its wasp-nest flaws

  of white on white, and close-

  laid Ionic chiton-folds

like the lines in the mane of

  a Parthenon horse,

  round which the arms had

wound themselves as if they knew love

  is the only fortress

  strong enough to trust to.