How is it you cannot get them out of your mind?
It’s precisely because they are useless.
You never really think of them – the peel, the rind.
They’re there without offering any excuses.
The tortoise hasn’t even left behind
his checkered armor, which also serves as his home,
and we’re busy studying a surface feature
for correspondence in the azure dome.
It seems to seem itself, apart from the creature.
Forget about the luck or ill-luck it may spell
and admire the print it makes in the hand.
Beauty in uselessness – that’s the abandoned shell.
Why is it that it so pleases, so amuses?
Maybe because it seems to understand
the advantages it has in being useless.
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[Next: Meaner Mirrors]