Heart, you bully, you punk.

[glitterandtwang]

Would you call this a love poem? If yes, why? If no, how do you interpret it? I've been reading it over and over for weeks and I find new things in it each time, so I'm curious as to what others might see...


ONE IS ONE
Marie Ponsot

Heart, 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 agent

since 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.

[mono]

Hmmm, interesting poem. I had to read it a few times to understand it.
Honestly, I cannot really term this a love poem, but more of a lament of the poet addressing her heart. In older verse, poets very often discussed the balance (or imbalance) of the heart and head, while either attempting an equilibrium, or remaining satisfied with one weighing more on his/her will than the other.
Marie Ponsot, I believe, complains of owning too willful and dominating a heart, though she never mentions its corresponding head, as in classical poetry. She identifies this through lines like:

You? you still try to rule the world

your greed to go solo, your eloquent
threats of worse things you (knowing me) could do.
In essence, Ponsot's heart has entire control over her will, except for her realization and distress over the fact. And what adjectives do the classical poets often use to describe the heart: fickle, romantic, dreamy, willful, emotional, irrational. Knowing this fact, however, as "jailers are prisoners' prisoners too," Ponsot desires much to make piece with her heart in the lines:

Think! Reform! Make us one. Join the rest of us,
and joy may come, and make its test of us.