Fathers and Daughters

It’s possible, I think,

observing some young women in company,

to see right through to

their relationships with their fathers:

mildly, safely flirtatious,

necks curved swanlike,

heads bent to meet authority,

eyes raised; it almost always works.

Like certain caterpillars,

they carry their homely cocoon

spun of kiss-spittle and spared rods

everywhere: it’s in their tote bags

alongside mother’s jealous food-gifts,

adjacent to their breastbud heartbeats

and rubs against their coyly shaven,

faintly pheremonal armpits.

All courtly love ends up in court of course,

too grand to be human;

the contract broken, lawyers called,

sides taken.

The party of the first part

now sees the paragraph called “father”

nested within yet other nested clauses.

To name some:

men who love another,

to whit, the one both ally and enemy

(she of the jealous food-gift)

men who hurt my mother

(by their love, or lack thereof)

men who have or may hurt me

(see above)

men who lie with me - or not

(aah, that horned beast)

men who lie to me

(and yet…)

The various Sins

of Omission

Commission

Intromission.

Ultimately,

and nakedly,

these butterfly-girls

come out.

Chew holes in the fragile vellum

digest with acid and bile

the webby cage of youth,

flap off

on wings like canvas

stretched and sized and

painted gaudy colours.

Deep in the household accounts,

Father, with his head for figures,

chews his pencil.
Draws up two columns

in his ledger:

Women

on one side

Daughters

on the other.

And the entries

double spaced

neatly underlined

in each case read:

those who have or may hurt me

those who betray me

those who leave me

those who will/not sleep with me

those I have held in my arms

those who say they love/d me

profit and loss

all balanced out.

Then calculates the bottom line:

accountants should not associate

too closely with lawyers.