Marianne Moore (1887-1972)
I Like a Horse but I Have a Fellow Feeling for a Mule (1917)
Jump to readingsI like the mule: his sides are thin.
He takes his ease in no man’s inn.
When contrarieties are thick
About his mind’s eye, he will kick;
Men bewail their false position;
Closing with the mule’s tradition.
He skirts the treeless precipice.
The former groan at that and this:
Though steeped in incredulity,
He treads on ‘nothing’ safely; he
Erects his body as a hedge
Between their bodies and the edge.