Snails

Datec. 1978

MediumLetterpress on paper

DimensionsPaper Size: 11 × 7 7/8 in. (27.9 × 20 cm)

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineGift of Gary Eleinko, 2023

Object numberUAC7445.08

DescriptionLetterpress printed poem by John Alfaro, titled "Snails".

Snails

You buy them alive to be fresh and you falter. They poke with
their delicate searching antennae and hold to the paper as
to life as it were. You scorn your menu and welcome your retinue.
Snails are surprisingly agile if you look. They are clamberers
and slowly acrobatic and much more skillful than most other behemoths. Some of them ruminate and some of them wander.
They adapt to the top of the table. They fall while learning the excellence and limits of height and then they remain on their quadature parcel resolute with the lettuce. They hang securely.
They secrete a glue from their apertures then they squat hermetically sealed and concealed inside. Snails are blatantly philosophers. They think about nothing worth doing and do nothing much more.
They cannot rhyme and they lack any melody. They live in their calcium and will not converse and decline celebration and often after the least activity inexplicably sleep.

Published by The Alternative Press, Issue Number 8.