35/10

Sharon Olds

Brushing out our daughter's brown

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 moist

precise 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.