A new coat and a fresh cold

Bella and I spent a few happy hours at the Chinese Garden, but after lunch in the tea-house, her nose began to run, her eyes glazed with fever, and she sagged against a wall.

"I sick, Baba." 

Back at my house she lay on the couch and let me tuck a blanket around her. I held her feet in my lap, and as she dozed off watching Youtubes on my iPad, I picked up a book of poetry and thought of another grandmother:

Poetry is to me
Your voice
Your touch
Your laughter
That feeling at the end of day
That I am
Not alone

--Nikki Giovanni, Chasing Utopia.