by Pamela McGarry
Daughters
She douses them in admiration,
throws a careless match in their direction.
Look at them. Are they not beautiful!
She’s in her pride, lips a little wet,
the girls, still hers, are in their nightgowns,
their burgeoning breasts,
their puppy tufts,
her dolls, tucked up in blankets,
then untucked and tucked each night
and left and found again each night,
the lights turned out,
his breathing heavy in the dark,
the whispers, quiet, my wee doll,
settle cuckoo-like among the broken twigs
she calls her life.