Photo:Yang Hui/GT

Weaning off facemasks

To such a day I aspire.

Stale with days and nights,

My face was masked with sourness

For want of a change.

Weaning off facemasks

To such a day I aspire.

There returns

Smoke through men's pipes,

Gloss on women's lips,

And children's songs.

Back to

School.

Hearing the recitals,

Ranging the campus.

Weaning off facemasks

To such a day I aspire.

Men and women

No longer wrapped in protective gear,

Fighting their way

Amid poison of disease.

Weaning off facemasks

To such a day I aspire.

In Wuhan and all China

Do we

Freely breathe,

And each other embrace.

To remember the taste of nice food,

And a new year bypassed.

Weaning off facemasks

To such a day I aspire.

Sun kissing my lips,

And spring through my nostrils

With warm words around.

Weaning off facemasks

To such a day I aspire.

Weaning off facemasks,

From Fear,

Delusion,

And discord.

Weaning off facemasks

Might be

Only temporarily.

If the scourge

Is not extinct for good.

Weaning off facemasks,

Might be

Also people in other lands

Face-masked already, or not.

Weaned, or not?

Weaning off facemasks,

Pray we may be

Also away with eyeglasses,

Orthopedics,

And everything not a part of us.

Weaning off facemasks

Pray we may be,

From the masks

To nature,

Freedom,

And health.

Wang Zhongzhou is a first-grade student at the Experimental Primary School affiliated to Renmin University of China, 12 years old.