We Didn’t Wear Masks

because the tightness the itch the stiff rectangle smothering us. Because eyes bore when mouth and nose hide. Because micro mold, the uglies. Didn’t get vaccinated because— well duh. Didn’t quarantine because we’re all God’s children except those who aren’t. We didn’t cancel the reunion because Amarillo and Waco, Oklahoma City, Whitefish, even California heading to our every other year gathering which was every year for a lifetime till the youngsters got too busy for their britches, but guess what, there’s nothing like family to get you through bosses that mangle you, bills that shred you, and cousin Dwayne hosted again because he’s our very own featured-in-Southern-Living Dwayne, moon far from our doublewides and fixer-uppers, and we chewed our biscuits and red-eyed gravy over prayer, ate our green bean casserole and mac and cheese, fried catfish, ham-hock collards, pineapple casserole, Mama’s three layer hummingbird cake, and we hunkered down in Dwayne’s den with the fancy tv and made a CDC dartboard and we scored Rochelle Walensky’s bitch brown eyes every damn throw. Hunkered down in Dwayne’s Southern Living kitchen with its Calacatta gold marble countertops clinking our bourbon, California pitching a hissy fit because some numb nuts said we’d be outside the whole time and we shouted “Go join the gals on the porch”— babies and lemonade till 4:00 when they switched to spiked sweet tea, and when night came and the kids chased fireflies and played with the Spanish moss dripping from the oaks and cypress and we had thirds of that hummingbird cake and Dwayne poured his small batch bourbon, well we knew no one ever had it so good, but now here we are— moss a plenty not much else except rust and corrosion brambles and thorns and who’d have guessed how many we’d lose, not just elders but whole families even babies in the ICU coughing their guts out, and now we spirit the Katrina ruins of Six Flags New Orleans Amusement Park, watch our little ghosts slide down the rusty spines of Zydeco Scream, beep broken bumper cars, spin in cracked flying Gator Boats, sword fight the Kudzu, chew at lichen covered foam handlebars. Sometimes the mamas paint flowers with the littles on the smashed porcelain toilets. Sometimes the mamas dip their hands into the brackish water, whispering: “It’s okay to play with the gators and cottonmouths.  Ain’t nothing can hurt you now.”