LIBERTÉ

Ankles shackled

metalled and islanded

holding aloft a mirror, feral

lipstick, eye-liner

             She’s

a celebrity   a star attraction

a glare effacing

the French Revolution’s

risen juices    vintage taste

the Paris Commune’s

fierce inscriptions

lost in translation

Adrienne Rich is the author of more than sixteen volumes of poetry and five nonfiction prose books, including A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society (Norton). Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 was published in 2011.