Surrender Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Consider the word surrender
The joy of delivering responsibility up to a masterful other,
A man like my father who sorted everything out!

How comfortable, to serve and not to govern!
How comfortable to act and not to fret!
How comforting to be featherbedded through life
With a champion looking out for you
Taking the hard knocks, slaying the dragons,
Bearding the Minotaur in his stinking den!

It is difficult being a woman
It is difficult to learn the ways of a gender
In love with mirrors, terrified of ageing

What harder work is there than childbirth?
No primping or preening there, through the looking glass
The howl of Agape, of a flesh-door forcibly opened
Almost like a rape.