Most poems of confrontation arm their speakers. Mary F. C. Pratt's "On Notice" does something stranger: its speaker prepares for the intruder by setting a table, almost. The title borrows the language of warnings, since to put someone "on notice" is to say that the rules have changed. But the poem never names the threat, and what it offers in place of weapons is flowers, water, a bird, paper and a lamp.
The first stanza sets this up with a hard frame and a soft middle. "This time, I will not hide" opens it, and "This time, you will not succeed" closes it, so the repeated phrase works like a pair of doors with the speaker's preparations between them. Those preparations are gathered in a run of "with" phrases: "with yellow flowers, / with clear water and a red bird, / with white paper and a lamp." The colours are bright and separate, almost like a child's list of favourite things. They are also not defensive objects. Judging by the paper and the lamp, the speaker may be preparing to write, to put things into words, and the second stanza supports this: "Now I know the words, / I know the tune." The poem hints that the speaker has found a voice she lacked before, and that this voice is her protection.
The tone changes in the middle stanza. The speaker is not tensely waiting but has "been / singing all day long." The line break after "have been" makes the sentence run on, as if the singing has no clear beginning. The sensory details are homely and slightly untidy: hair that "smells like apples," hands "stained with currant juice / and mud." The speaker is not scrubbed or armoured. The red stain of the juice also echoes the red bird, so her body and her preparations belong to the same world. Then, at the end of the stanza, the poem swerves: "Do you think" hangs at the line's end, and the question arrives only in the next stanza: "you can break in again?" The phrase "again" is the one place the poem admits a past violation. It is delivered mid-sentence, across a stanza break, as though the speaker refuses to give the memory a stanza of its own.
The final stanza holds the poem's central paradox. She has "collected all your keys," a practical, almost bureaucratic act that takes away the intruder's means of entry. Yet "all my windows are open." Locks no longer matter if nothing is shut. Her safety comes from giving up the idea of a fortress, since you cannot break into a house that is already open. The casual question "Did you see the moon last night?" fits this, because it is a remark to someone who is no longer being treated as a threat to her peace. The idea that the intruder might be shown the moon is unsettling and rather brave.
The closing couplet-like sentence is the hardest to settle: "I have nothing you can destroy / and everything I have is yours." It can be read as defiance, since what is freely given cannot be stolen. It can also be read as a generous gesture, an invitation, or an ironic one. The poem does not say who "you" is: an abuser, a memory, a fear, even a lover are all possible, and the poem gives no evidence to choose. That openness is a strength, because readers can bring their own "you" to it.
Formally, the poem is quiet. It has three six-line stanzas, no rhyme, and short lines of plain speech. Nearly every sentence begins with "I" or "you," which keeps the poem a face-to-face exchange. The first stanza contains only statements, while the questions come later, as her confidence has grown enough to ask them.
What makes the poem significant is that it redefines strength. The speaker does not become hard. She becomes unguarded on her own terms, and the poem suggests that this is what makes her unreachable. In twelve plain sentences it turns a story of intrusion into one of ownership: her house, her voice, her moon.