Game of Chance
for M.L.R.

she wants to be able
to push men about

as if they were light
or light to lift

as if they were all
just puppies on strings
to pull, to yank

to caress sometimes
kick sometimes
kiss sometimes

she wants a man
to have, to hold
when it´s cold

to enfold, to enfold her
when she feels like it
to refuse
when she does not
feel like it

my God,
I certainly could not abide
being reduced
to a house guest
to a house mouse
to a house fly

when the week before
when the day before
we had been lovers

romance evaporated
just like that, in a flash

too fast occurring to be seen

what was responsible
for the status change

how did I come to be
stripped of all my badges
of the rank I had

without being decorated
like I had been
she expected me
to hang around

who was a general
reduced to a private

what a reshuffling
of a deck of cards


© Obediah Michael Smith
4:00 p.m. 16.01.12