Not So Little Girl, Found

(a hope poem)

Shannon writes me notes
in a child’s scrawl,
even though she’s 14.

I wonder
if she knows
how necessary her moms-
yeah, she’s got two- notes
about dance recitals, baseball practice, and track meets
are to my personal, overworked sanity.

She reminds me,
the honorary auntie she’s never met,
that there is more too life
than this keyboard
or whether some grant committee finds
my work “suitable for funding”.

She reminds me that no matter
where someone starts out in life;
you can become what or whoever
the universe and you, yourself, decree.