Women At Forty Women At Forty Have learned to open loudly The doors for shut rooms Having resolved the question of children Either way They are renewed Learned to rock their own boats For reliant on the old boys club The meter and rhythm will not suit Having learned to sail after being refused Entry to the engine room Something is filling them, sails billowing A long beam reach What remains is the gentle way their mothers ushered them Past the tensions. The umbilical cord severed twice Before the bon is built by choice The power of that gentle, sustaining embrace More wind power than the filth of diesel howling Somedays chirping against their mast Somedays a steady stream of air.