The Girl by Marie Howe

While this is not my favorite poem by Marie Howe, it is one that feels appropriate for tonight.

THE GIRL BY MARIE HOWE

So close to the end of my childbearing life

without children

-if I could remember a day when I was utterly a girl

and not yet a woman-

but I don't think where was a day like that for me.

When I look at the girl I was, dripping in her bathing suit,

or riding her bike, pumping hard down the newly paved street,

she wears the furtive look-

and even if I could go back in time to her as me, the age I am now

she would never come into my arms

without believing that I wanted something.