Last April I felt so trapped that I sat in my mother’s rocking chair (the one she loaned me when you were born) and I wrote poems every day as if the words could somehow help me find a blank page to start over with.

This April is so different. How could I have known how different it was gonna be? You sat in your car seat yesterday for only the 2nd time in a month, with a mask over your face, and you named all the new things: new car, new house, new kitty, new school (the one you got to attend for only one month).

Tonight was the first time in a long time you said “I miss him,” followed by “I wonder if God knows when he’ll come back.” I gave the rocking chair back to my mom about a month before the pandemic. I just can’t seem to write poems this April. I wonder where the blank pages are.