Imbedded in a paragraph I read,
the author made a character express
conceit about the limits women dread,
and role reversals in the game of chess.
So women even now and surely then
were victims of constraint and guarded range,
but on the chessboard queens protect the men
in duel and bluff, and no one finds that strange.

And now I’ll not discover that conceit
for someone else has given it to me.
From book to brain, the transfer is complete,
and I am tickled but a bit less free,
for now the thought is put before my eyes,
it’s one that I can never realize.