"Ladies"

Ladies of leisure, with their eyes on the back roads ---
All looking for strangers, to whom they extend welcomes
With a smile and a glimpse of pink knees and elbows;
Of satin and velvet --- good ladies, good fortune.
Ladies.
They sing of their heroes: of solitary soldiers
Invested in good health and manner most charming.
Whose favors are numbered (none the less well intended)
By hours in a minute; by those ladies who bless them.
Ladies