My teenager asks me how long zits last, and I tell him about washcloths and exfoliating soap and his father’s acne scars because I grew up on G.I. Joe and knowing is half the battle. It’s not the answer he wanted. Mine never are. Like when he asks if he can go to the pool with the boys—and I remember fourteen, the dive, my ambulance ride to the ER. So I let him shoot hoops, hoping it will be enough. Hoping he remembers Billy Blazes and Wendy Waters and to think like a rescue hero, think safe.

When he asks how much longer we have to do this—wash hands, wear masks, go to school online, I smartly report CDC guidelines and the governor’s timelines and keep right on rattling about how the pantry’s stocked with soup and crackers, just in case, and thermometers and extra inhalers and his favorite sports drink, the one with all the electrolytes. Oh, and only acetaminophen because reports say it’s better for this kind of inflammation than ibuprofen. None of this brings him comfort.

He has stopped listening. Something about a rainbow and a siege and the number six. We’ve got this, I tell him again, like I’m Hannibal and this is war and my son’s part of the A-Team. I’ve always loved it when a plan comes together. But none of my childhood heroes help me be the mom my child needs. None of the taglines work. Yet here I am trying to MacGyver away his pain, MacGyver a way for us to recoup such loss, when I can’t even Go Go Gadget myself any taller to once more perfectly hug the boy who has outgrown me.

Marissa Glover currently lives and writes in Florida, where she teaches at Saint Leo University. She is coeditor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Her poetry most recently appears in River Mouth Review, Middle House Review, The UCity Review, and HocTok Magazine. Marissa’s poetry collection, Let Go of the Hands You Hold, will be published by Mercer University Press in 2021. You can follow her on Twitter @_MarissaGlover_.