Gift Card Adventures

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 Gift Card Adventures 

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Before you take them to Target

Make sure they brush and floss

their teeth. Tell them the night

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before so they giggle in their beds

the way you did as a kid at sleep overs.

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Help them straighten up their room

and imagine what they can put where.

Stop by and pick up your mom,

who’s willing to tabulate their piggy banks,

~

set limits in advance on how loud, how fast, 

how much

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Make sure you have the gift

cards and then steal a minute to write 

a poem with which you’ll steady yourself

when inevitably, expectations shatter

~

and you are confronted by the

plastic mob. 

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Send Sarah Emma Ruth $5 for coffee via Venmo

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