Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Marie Howe’s "Girl" is a quiet yet powerful reflection on the transition from girlhood to womanhood and the absence of a clear boundary between the two. The speaker, now at the "end of my childbearing life without children," looks back on her younger self and finds that she cannot pinpoint a time when she was "utterly a girl and not yet a woman." The poem moves through memory and self-examination, questioning whether innocence ever truly existed in an untainted form.

The opening line establishes a tone of resignation and quiet loss. The phrase "so close to the end of my childbearing life" suggests both biological finality and an emotional reckoning with what has not come to pass. The fact that the speaker has "no children" underscores an absence that colors the way she looks back on her past. This absence extends into memory itself—she cannot recall a moment when she was purely a child, untouched by the expectations or implications of adulthood.

When the speaker conjures an image of her younger self—*"dripping in her bathing suit, or riding her bike, pumping hard down the newly paved street"—the girl appears in motion, active and engaged with her world. These are classic images of childhood, evoking a sense of freedom and physicality. However, the description is quickly undercut by the revelation that the girl "wears a furtive look." The word "furtive" introduces an element of secrecy, hesitation, or even fear. It suggests that even in these moments of supposed innocence, there was already an awareness of being watched, of needing to be guarded.

The poem’s most poignant moment comes in the final lines: "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." This reflection carries deep emotional weight. The older speaker longs to comfort her younger self, yet she recognizes that the girl would not trust her embrace. The assumption that "she would never come into my arms without believing that I wanted something" suggests a world in which affection and safety are conditional, where even a child has internalized the idea that love comes with an expectation. There is an implicit history of vulnerability, of lessons learned too early about self-protection.

At its core, "Girl" is a meditation on the impossibility of returning to a state of pure innocence. The poem suggests that for some, there was never a distinct threshold between childhood and adulthood, only a gradual awareness of the complexities of being seen and desired. The speaker’s lament is not just about aging or childlessness, but about the realization that even as a child, she was already guarding herself. The poem lingers in this unresolved space, where memory, longing, and self-knowledge intersect, leaving us with the haunting recognition that some distances, even within ourselves, can never be crossed.

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