My Virtual Reading Room

Sharon Olds

35/10

Brushing out my daughter's dark
silken hair before the mirror
I see the grey gleaming on my head,
the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it
just as we begin to go
they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck
clarifying as the fine bones of her
hips sharpen? As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a small
pale flower on the tip of a cactus;
as my last chances to bear a child
are falling through my body, the duds among them,
her full purse of eggs, round and
firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about
to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled
fragrant hair at bedtime. It's an old
story--the oldest we have on our planet--
the story of replacement.

(1984)

~~
Jane Betz

21/62

A voice on the other end of the phone says hello.
It is my voice, with the same inflection, the same make-believe cheer
I have come to put on when I answer the telephone.
"Hi, Mom," I say cheerfully, knowing the voice must belong to my mother,
since it can't be mine.
"Hi...,Honey," she answers, not knowing which mimic,
which of her little monkeys to greet.
Mom spread herself over six daughters.
Before we knew there was anyone else in the world
she held us wrapped in her carefully crafted cocoon,
rigged before birth for the life-long task of taking her place.
Thick in some places, wearing to a thread in others,
the coiling cord of maternal silk binds us together and to her.
Miles long now, it thrums communication still.
~~

My Rival

I GO to concert, party, ball—
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right	5
They burn before Her shrine;
And that’s because I’m seventeen
And she is forty-nine.
I cannot check my girlish blush,
My colour comes and goes.	10
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to my nose.
But She is white where white should be,
And red where red should shine.
The blush that flies at seventeen	15
Is fixed at forty-nine.
I wish I had her constant cheek:
I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
Not quite the proper thing.	20
I’m very gauche and very shy,
Her jokes aren’t in my line;
And, worst of all, I’m seventeen
While She is forty-nine.
The young men come, the young men go,	25
Each pink and white and neat,
She’s older than their mothers, but
They grovel at Her feet.
They walk beside Her ’rickshaw-wheels—
None ever walk by mine;	30
And that’s because I’m seventeen
And She is forty-nine.
She rides with half a dozen men
(She calls them “boys” and “mashes”),
I trot along the Mall alone;	35
My prettiest frocks and sashes
Don’t help to fill my programme-card,
And vainly I repine
From ten to two A.M. Ah me!
Would I were forty-nine.	40
She calls me “darling,” “pet,” and “dear,”
And “sweet retiring maid.”
I’m always at the back, I know—
She puts me in the shade.
She introduces me to men—	45
“Cast” lovers, I opine;
For sixty takes to seventeen,
Nineteen to forty-nine.
But even She must older grow
And end Her dancing days,	50
She can’t go on for ever so
At concerts, balls, and plays.
One ray of priceless hope I see
Before my footsteps shine;
Just think, that She’ll be eighty-one	55
When I am forty-nine!

(Rudyard Kipling)