Marianne Moore Announces Lunch

With several well-placed
cracks on crystal
she sounds her
somewhat minatory
call to a long (interminable)
light lunch featuring
things barely edible
selected and arranged
for single virtues
such as crunch or
a green translucence.
Celery figures
centrally (though
too complex);
if only the strings
might be plucked
or Aeolian we might
achieve Style—a
clarified butter
rather than the
opaque margarine
which spreads of its
own accord, greasing
the jowls of the coarser
gluttons, so common
at any public board
such as this trafficking
in words. The problem
remains how to make
wits rise to a new
level; perhaps
some subtle device
which will secretly
raise the legs of the table?

From Strangely Marked Metal (Copper Beech Press, 1985)