When I pronounce the word future
            after Wislawa Szymborska

I notice what a good scrabble word it would be
using up two u’s like that. Someone on Twitter
wrote she was praying the president wouldn’t
start a war this weekend. I have lots of plans,
too. Conflicting political events on Saturday
and a play about the Middle East to see on Sunday.
I would really like to see Sunday. There are poems
I want to read. I need to prepare a calculus final
because my colleague and I agreed to talk about
it on Monday. Tonight M and her sons are coming
to dinner. We’ll do a bit of Passover, partially
multicultural, partially because their Jewish
grandmother is dead and can’t do it for them
though I think when she married a Danish man
goodbye to a musty religion was part of that.
On the other hand, I wanted my child to take
some of that history into the future. My mother-in-law
played a fierce game of scrabble and showed up
at demonstrations all of her life. I would like
to pronounce the word future with her confidence.