Tuesday, April 06, 2021

IT'S THE QUICK PRICKS

by Tricia Knoll




You lament we’ve missed so much
theater, solstice estivals, state fair curly fries,
Aunt Moo’s 75th birthday at the river
 
but I’m thinking of what I don’t miss
    yellow fever       polio       lockjaw
          flu         hepatitis       diphtheria 
 
because I learned a thing or two
     from   mumps     measles    chicken pox
                whooping cough
 
see I’m old enough to have had those
      but not the firsts because I got the shot
 
and I’m old enough to have had
       my two COVID quick pricks
 
so I don’t miss holding my new grandson
       on the way, seeing our plays unfold
       on a stage with open curtains. 
       Amen and thank you.  


Tricia Knoll just got her second COVID shot. She took the "quick pricks" from Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Dear Vaccine." Knoll's new chapbook Checkered Mates is available from Kelsay Books and Amazon.