On a summer afternoon
we take a break from sorting,
Kelsey on the deck with eight
plastic bottles of vintage bubbles
that have lived in my garage
for decades.

“Are they still any good?” I ask.
Kelsey, much closer to her
bubble-blowing youth than I,
shrugs, then grins when I ask,
“You wanna test ’em?”

And so this young journalist—
soon to head cross country for
a newspaper fellowship, a woman
currently freelancing stories to
a number of magazines—gathers
the bottles, then sits on the edge
of the backyard deck blowing bubbles
with, I imagine, the enthusiasm
of her much younger self.

She assesses the blowing strength
of each plastic wand that comes
in the bottles (bigger is better),
and the bubbles themselves, to
our surprise, perform admirably.

On the same afternoon, in another
town, my sister and brother-in-law
blow bubbles for their year-old
grandson, text a photo of his
delighted face, his arms reaching for
the vanishing bits of soapy air.

It seems that bubbles last forever,
or at least for a long time—
that we are never too old to pull
out a plastic soapy wand from
a bottle, purse our lips and blow,

then watch the multitude of
shimmery bubble sandwiches
float momentarily, then silently
pop, leaving traces of magic—
and not a little joy—behind.