This poem was published in Social Justice Inks Anthology by Lisa Tomey’s Prolific Pulse Press, available for purchase onAmazon.

An old woman took her granddaughter to the mall.

She wanted to buy her little girl a lollipop.

The shopkeeper asked her to pay at the facial recognition machine.

She was too poor to own a digital device,

too helpless to be tech savvy,

and she only scraped by using the money in a biscuit tin.

The shopkeeper told her that business could not accept cash payment anymore,

for the public health order said it all.

She pleaded with the shopkeeper saying they were clean and healthy.

All she wanted was a good old days’ reward for her granddaughter.

The little girl looked up to her tear-filled eyes,

“Nana, you are the sweetest thing in the whole wide world,

more than all the lollies in the shop.

Our papa…