Stains wash out easily
29 years after these  
infant sweaters saw use.  

Wool dries while Covid’s fog
thickens, and my thoughts fly,
land in London, June 1940.  

There bombers would soon
sully the sky, hammer
panic onto death and grief  

while young women, aglow
behind blackout curtains,
stripped stains from tiny clothes.  

Under masks, we too fold hope —
my daughter-in-law and I —
between the knitted rows.