Because Now I Am a Grandmother

I stopped writing the poem
to babysit the grandchildren
because now I am a grandmother

and I need to start acting like it.
I’ll park my car in their driveway and later,
the kids and I will pretend that car is a boulder

they are racing around on their bikes with
training wheels with me after them,
my arthritic tyrannosaurus hands in the air,

them screaming before they are caught
in a dinosaur embrace, before the
car–boulder becomes a giant turtle,

snapping at us, and we run across the
beaten grass, realizing we’ve made it out
alive, and no one is more surprised than me.