To a Steam Roller

By Marianne Moore

The illustration

is nothing to you without the application.

You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down

into close conformity, and then walk back and forth on them.

Sparkling chips of rock

are crushed down to the level of the parent block.

Were not 'impersonal judment in aesthetic

matters, a metaphysical impossibility,' you

might fairly achieve

it. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive

of one's attending upon you, but to question

the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.