In encrypted, Arleen Paré documents a grandson’s vanishing into the world of digital gaming and a grandmother’s attempts to understand, alongside a backdrop of climate anxiety and a global pandemic. This cohesive collection interweaves the grandson’s addiction with the speaker’s honest reflections on her own life. She observes that “in this game of fast forward/I am a former dimension.” Yet she strives to reach her grandson in his fortified shelter. With a keen ear for music and linguistic precision, Paré makes poetic the language of video gaming and coding. encrypted is a vivid exploration of what makes our lives meaningful, of how one young man with avatar hands can “round out this world.” Throughout the narrative, Paré never succumbs to easy judgement but remains empathetic, questioning, loving, open to learning and longing for connection.