Poem

Women

By Rodney Mazinter

Mavis was at pains to point out to me that a man’s thought processes were deficient when it comes to looking after people in need. She made a good case and gave as an example an incident where the only male in her aqua class took for granted that an elderly woman suffering from dementia would be able to fend for herself and left her to her own resources, and she got lost. This set me to thinking about women and how they react to the world of men. I could only draw from my own experience.

Mave’s hot, Mave’s cold, pleasing, vexing;

An open book, yet most perplexing.

She will bring you joy, then cause you sorrow,

With a smile today, and a frown tomorrow.

She’ll bring despair — to hope restore you,

She’ll be your slave — then lord it o’er you.

Responsive, shy, loving, rightful;

An inconsistency delightful.

Repelling now, and then caressing,

Rodney’s plague, his greatest blessing.

And though beneath himself he’d class her,

And call himself her lord and master,

She casts him off, or closer binds him,

And around her little finger winds him.