March 15, 1947

  At night the factories   struggle awake,   wretched uneasy buildings   veined with pipes   attempt their work.   Trying to breathe   the elongated nostrils   haired with spikes   give off such stenches, too. And I shall sell you sell you sell you of course, my dear, and you’ll sell me.

  On certain floors   certain wonders.   Pale dirty light,   some captured iceberg   being prevented from melting.   See the mechanical moons,   sick, being made   to wax and wane   at somebody’s instigation. And I shall sell you sell you sell you of course, my dear, and you’ll sell me.

  Lights music of love   work on. The presses   print calendars   I suppose, the moons   make medicine   or confectionary. Our bed   shrinks from the soot   and the hapless odors   hold us close. And I shall sell you sell you sell you of course, my dear, and you’ll sell me.

This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979), the poet laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, published two poems in The Nation between 1945 and 1947, when Randall Jarrell was interim literary editor. She was a longtime friend of the more frequent Nation contributor Marianne Moore, who in a 1946 review in these pages described Bishop as “spectacular in being unspectacular.”