Marie Ponsot

[from Springing: New and Selected Poems by Marie Ponsot]

Entranced

1

For openers
any wall has doors in it.

Openers who want
a door (not for air
but for passing through)

open & shut it
forcefully, under
heavy pressure
from the atmosphere
outside.

The ideal opener investigates
those osmotic waterfalls
which infiltrate
doorless walls.

2

To enter the enclosure
of the garden
or the citadel

be door, be son
or daughter

to the dearness
of pleasure.

Exits are disclosure.
Making an exit
can unlock you—
the way entrances do—

to being
outgoing.

In verse & reverse
word and worm
both turn.