Living with my wife in Queens,

we watched news and I tried to fail

at prose, as I was taught,

until something better gripped

my trembling hands. 
The faces of my MFA peers

were framed in sorrow.

We had Friday

happy hours on Zoom

which meant little

but was necessary.
Hospitals overflowed,

boxed images

of refrigerated trailers outside

white walled institutions

held me. 
Seven pm.

The window opens.

I bang on a pot

with a wooden spoon.

I cheer and cheer

and am reminded:
Grandma was taken

as a child to Mornington Island

mission on Lardil Country. 
That evening

after hugging my wife tightly

and saying and hearing

the words we both needed

to continue on…
I dreamt over oceans.

I dreamt of my family. 
It is seven pm.

The window opens.

I bang and bang on the pot.

In the rhythm

thud, thud, thud, thud,

my cheers become a mantra

of pleas to my dead grandmother

whom I never met.
Over the echoes of fear and gratitude

circling that too large city

my strained voice is but a hoarse whisper

in the fading spring light: 
Help me fail, Nan.

Please, please, please,

help me fail, Nan. 
Help me fail and fail again.