Surrender by Mara Lemanis

Surrender by Mara Lemanis 

 

Surrender

 

Will you surrender then

will you come meekly

to my castle keep?

I’ll draw a mote

around your scalloped shell

I’ll girdle you with ringing cliffs

strong mastiffs

baring tusks, long trunks

You’ll be a jewel in my keep;

why ask

will you feel sovereign and free?

what’s freedom but deliverance

from coffins creaking in the brain;

 

The question is

will you feel comforted and safe?

Yes.

 Like a swallow in an eagle’s nest

Yes.

 Like a sunny glade down

bright-eyed mountain crests.

What have you got to lose —

your indigent soft pride?

Your wheat fields dry to straw

You trade in deficits

Investors snub your stores

your bankers all in green hunt

futures in the ash of smoldered woods.

 

Your infantry runs off

to khaki wastes in no-man’s land

You say you’re going to fight —

                                                                        where will you get the might?

I’ve digitized your realty

encrypted by my keep…

What pleasures will be yours:

I stud your bogs with virile trees

I tweak your hills to trill my hymns

—  come meekly now

don’t cry you’re in a bind

As everything that’s yours

is eminently mine.

                

 Mara Lemanis