The Man-Moth by Elizabeth Bishop

The Man Moth

by Elizabeth Bishop

published in The Complete Poems, 1926-1979

Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.”Here, above,cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight.The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,o...