The little quids, the million quids, The everywhere, everything, always quids, The atoms of the Monoton— Each turned three essences where it stood And ground a gisty dust from its neighbors’ edges Until a powdery thoughtfall stormed in and out, The cerebration of a slippery quid enterprise. Each quid stirred. The united quids Waved through a sinuous decision. The quids, that had never done anything before But be, be, be, be, be, The quids resolved to predicate And dissipate in a little grammar. Oh, the Monoton didn’t care, For whatever they did— The Monoton’s contributing quids— The Monoton would always remain the same. A quid here and there gyrated in place-position, While many essential quids turned inside-out For the fun of it And a few refused to be anything but Simple, unpredicated copulatives. Little by little, this commotion of quids, By threes, by tens, by casual millions, Squirming within the state of things— The metaphysical acrobats, The naked, immaterial quids— Turned inside on themselves And came out dressed, Each similar quid of the inward same, Each similar quid dressed in a different way— The quid’s idea of a holiday. The quids could never tell what was happening. But the Monoton felt itself differently the same In its different parts. The silly quids upon their rambling exercise Never knew, could never tell What their pleasure was about, What their carnival was like, Being in, being in, being always in Where they never could get out Of the everywhere, everything, always in, To derive themselves from the Monoton. But I know, with a quid inside of me, But I know what a quid’s disguise is like, Being one myself, The gymnastic device That a quid puts on for exercise. And so should the trees, And so should the worms, And so should you, And all the other predicates, And all the other accessories Of the quid’s masquerade.
— Laura (Riding) Jackson