The Ways Of Daughters

My daughters are getting on. They're in over their hips, over their stretch marks. Their debts are rising and their faces are serious. There are no great barns or riding horses. Only one of them has a washing machine. Their old cars break and are never fixed. So what is this substance that floods over them, into which they wade as if going out to meet the Phoenicians? And they have no nets for those shifty looking sailors. But when I look again, my daughters are alone in their kitchens. Each child sweats in its junior bed. And my girls are painting their fingernails. They are rubbing lotions on their impatient hands. This year they are staining their hands and feet with henna. They lie in the sun with henna packs on their hair.