skips off my granddaughter’s tongue like juice,
born too late for Frozen, she knows only a bit of theater
dancing in an almost empty multi-plex with all the family;
for Wreck-it Ralph 2 I gave in and danced her strapped
to my chest through the lobby and in and out of rest rooms
now we won’t go to a theater, not even for Reya and I missed
Dragons III; she sings all the songs from Trolls World Tour
and her little brother (too young for either Frozen) dances,
“oh trolls just wanna have fun,” there won’t be multiplexes
in their future; she slips her Paw Patrol mask happily above
her nose when we order her favorite pink donut
at the take out window, and suddenly she can read,
four years old and its “what does it mean ‘Service on Sunday’”
and “can you help me know it”: I don’t know little girl,
I don’t know if I will ever go with uncovered face out
in public or even if Mommy-Daddy will take their masks
down in my house; she says “John is afraid of germs
in the elevator at his house so he is having a sleep-over at Nana’s”
it’s a long sleepover, we get tired, and we think we may not
make it to the whatever spring the sun rises to, a poet asks
“what do you want to see emerge in a post COVID
World?” oh, I just want to see it, and “how does the pandemic
offer opportunities for positive social change?” dear friend, you,
who deny “white privilege” and “systemic racism” already say,
with great and delighted surprise: “my grandson is black.”
