Deposition From The Princess Marionette (Final Version) Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

it is easy to fulfill one's public duties
with the smile forever painted on your puppet face
to dance and sing, to clap most pleasingly
at the incidental music
when someone else pulls the strings of Grace
or else to lie desolate, unused and crumpling
stored in the trunk with the company props
never in charge of special ops
then it's hard to find comfort in your one dress
of pink sateen your tinfoil crown among the mothballs
and the fraying sheen of it all.

yet I have gleaned on my own rare things
and wholly admissible in court
even from collapsed choreography in the wings
playing the angel with no wings adrift in sawdust
miraculous conversations from the stage set moonlit balconies.

mary angela douglas 23 october 2021; 17 april 2023