Only A Girl

by Kathryn Schowalter


1978
sorting mail
in the Grafton Post Office a post card catches

my eye a toddler holds her baby sister
to the words
“It’s only a post card because it’s only a girl”

my incredulity reaches
into 2021 wondering
about the fate of newborn Only-a-girl, a woman now
is she only a lover only
a wife only a mother perhaps only a grandmother

did a Crown Prince follow
her to the head of the table twenty-four months after her only-a-girl birth was she
fed a diet of parental disappointment when old enough to read

did she find a left behind only-a-girl announcement

possibly it put steel
in her only-a-girl spine compelling her to
write best sellers
fly to the space station become a great brain surgeon skilled teacher
beloved professor or
caring crossing-guard

and
loving mother of

two precious daughters thankful every day
that she wasn’t born only a boy


* * * * *

Kathryn Schowalter is a retired Special Education Educator. She has had poetry published in Fireside Poets, Hemisphere, Pyrite, Wisconsin Poets Calendar, Ariel Chart and an essay in Science Of Mind Magazine. She has had photos of her Irish wolfhounds published in “365 Dogs Calendar.”