From "The First, at the Last"
By Marie Ponsot
All he undertook
goes under, under
the undergrowth he rose from
fly-boy, lovely
in his day.
All his clothes
— spruce suit & tie —
are underclothes
against ungrounded gray.
All his studies understudy
an unstudied play.
Under the under
of what I remember
we are both twenty
and except with each other
underemployed.
It is summer.
Under our butter, bread,
summer’s hunger satisfied.
Copyright Credit: From Springing: New and Selected Poems by Marie Ponsot, copyright © 2002 by Marie Ponsot. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.