One Is One by Marie Ponsot
One Is One
Marie PonsotHeart, you bully, you punk, I’m wrecked, I’m shocked
stiff. You? you still try to rule the world–though
I’ve got you: identified, starving, locked
in a cage you will not leave alive, no
matter how you hate it, pound its walls,
& thrill its corridors with messages.Brute. Spy. I trusted you. Now you reel & brawl
in your cell but I’m deaf to your rages,
your greed to go solo, your eloquent
threats of worse things you (knowing me) could do.
You scare me, bragging you’re a double agentsince jailers are prisoners’ prisoners too.
Think! Reform! Make us one. Join the rest of us,
and joy may come, and make its test of us.
MARGINALIA
Hello, February. We both know what this month means, my heart and I.
ABOUT MARIE PONSOT
Born in New York, poet and translator Marie Ponsot was the daughter of a teacher and a wine importer and was raised Catholic, a faith she kept her whole life. She earned a BA at St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn, New York, and an MA in 17th-century literature at Columbia University. On a ship to Paris after World War II, she met poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who later published Ponsot’s debut collection through his City Lights Press. (Source)
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ENDNOTES
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