A Girl’s Head

(after the poem, ‘A Boy’s Head’ by Miroslav Holub)

 

In it there is a dream

that was started

before she was born,

 

and there is a globe

with hemispheres

which shall be happy.

 

There is her own spacecraft,

a chosen dress

and pictures of her friends.

 

There are shining rings

and a maze of mirrors.

 

There is a diary

for surprise occasions.

 

There is a horse springing hooves

across the sky.

 

There is a sea

that tides and swells

and cannot be mapped.

 

There is untold hope

in that no equation exactly

fits a head.

Katherine Gallagher

(from Poetry Street 3 (Sale & Orme, 1991),

• Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #19

 

Katherine said: Looking back at Poetry Prompts, I thought about #19 with its buzz of questions. And I alighted on questions about what goes on in a girl’s head. Actually, I wrote this in response to Miroslav Holub’s poem ‘A Boy’s Head’. The thing about poetry, it usually asks more questions than it answers, but that’s useful.