To My Daughter, In the Present

If I were to tell you just one thing
              in between the waves of pandemic

                                          I would tell you “sand, political T-shirt, words born

If I could tell you many, many things, I wouldn’t
                   because your hair feels soft in my palm

I’m angry at everyone, but work
                                              to stabilize their homes

to keep the fairy tale winds and wolves
sipping tea at the hearth

trading jokes about the stock market
              while three pigs reinforce with straw

when what we really need is no more
straw       
or winds 
or wolves

or for straw to be enough

That would be the best way to tell you about the delays
              and the barricades and the

lack of everything we need at the exact time
we need it     

                                  Better than telling you about mermaids
                                              without the voices they traded for legs

Or else that would be the best way
                            of all the best ways
                                        because I want you to learn a woodpecker pecks
                                                                    a shoe makes a bad house

and Jack is nimblest when he avoids the burn