There is no shame
in the serene drunkenness
you get when you stand
under a linden tree in summer,
wearing the smell of honey
and the rumble of contented bees
around you like a bonnet.

There is no shame
in careening downhill on a bike
with your legs out wide
as the wind lifts the heat
right out of the air
and you are going so fast
no one can even hear you singing.

There is no shame
in loving the movie you saw
without restraint,
in reading whatever
you want to read,
in admitting
wholeheartedly
to hope.

Who told you
it was ignorant
to be happy?

How dare they forbid
something so close
to peace?

Happiness does not ignore suffering;
it is what makes the suffering
bearable enough
so there is energy
leftover
for change.

I won’t subject you
to the details,
just that I was biking
and then I wasn’t.

It’s not that my leg won’t heal,
just that it will take longer

“because of my age,”
the doctor said.

Which happened to be
on the same day
I learned that VHS tapes
were invented
the year I was born.

The VHS tapes
that are now extinct.

And now I see
what my mother meant
about how strange
it is to get older.

The changes suddenly speed up
as though aging is a thing
that chases.

First, a leg.
Earlobes seem looser too.
Veins have popped on my hands
as though families of caterpillars
are hiding under the blanket
of my skin.

And yet, I am still as bright inside
as I have ever been,
as I will always be,
evolving and unfolding.

See my light,
I hear them clearly now,
women of my mother’s age,
that chorus of fierce hearts
I will soon join.

It’s easy to be bleak
about America.

These days,
it’s the accepted
way to be.

But I refuse.

America is not
its president
or its police force
or its loudest voices
on the news.

America is a skin of land
that holds 331 million hearts,
and if we could see
an aerial view,
the goodness
would light up
the map.

Just today,
a teenage runner in Indiana
stopped in the middle of the race
to help an injured competitor
cross the finish line.

The landscapers in Detroit
who mow the lawns
of healthcare workers
for free.

The jazz musicians in New Orleans
who trade guns
for trumpets,
no questions asked,
and then give each person
who hands over their gun
music lessons for a year.

Bursts of kindness
fusing hearts together
every day.

And it doesn’t make me ache
for the injustice
any less.

And it doesn’t make me blind
to the hate and the fear
and the land that continues to burn
with its own fury.

It just doesn’t make me
give up
on America.

How could I?

The map is blinking again,
like a carpet of stars,
with endless examples
of humanity
and hope.

If we are going to be inside
this pandemic
for months to come,
I want to stop looking out
the window.

I want to find a way to thrive
through this time,
not to wait
it out.

To keep people safe,
not keep them at bay.

If life is a sheet of paper,
I want to stop complaining
about how small mine is,
and instead cover every inch
of it in colour.

I want to wear a mask
with sequins,
and go for walks
with old friends
in the rain.

I want to talk for hours on the phone
like I did when I was a teenager,
and I want to mail postcards
from a different suburb
each week.

I don’t need to push
any rules,
only my finger
on the play button
again.

For I am no longer
on pause.

Do you hear that?

It’s the sound
of my dreams,
flooding
back.

She taught me creative writing
but what I learned had nothing to do with words.

She taught me what seventy-eight years old looks like,
which is that the body
still has the same amount of shine
it just stores it all in the eyes.

She taught me that when you slow down
you are not the river anymore,
you are the riverbank
which is just as beautiful.

She taught me that wrinkles
are the stretch marks
of a full life.

She taught me that I could only see her by listening
so when I miss her now
I open the window
and listen to the birds.

She used to say if I was patient,
I might hear the oldest ones
laughing.