Another Morning by Jerri Hardesty

I pour myself orange juice, maximum pulp.

I say the hell with my diet, slather cream cheese on my bagel.

The newspaper seems to be thinking my thoughts:

No hope for old men, just young people everywhere.

*

Is the life we lead in public real? What I’ve offered

my daughter is a version I made up.

She must worry about trusting a father who knows everything.

My daughter has always believed in my earnestness.

Must I tell her that her white privilege will be taken away?

*

She never did like to go to sleep;

every night she had to be talked into it all over again.

Her mother sang softly coaxing her. The murmur

of their voices was the the most comforting sound I ever heard.

*

America is living on borrowed time. We have two different

Americas playing games with different rules.

The events on January 6th offered no hope that I could recognize.

The aliens attacking the Capital were an apocalypse of hate.

*

Here, the pansies are blooming, my daughter

has pictures of Sesame Street by her bed.

Faith and love should be her inheritance. But, there

is another headline of a missing teenage girl.

*

I imagine another day full of duties, fears, and small complaints.

This newspaper will become kindling for our next fire,

I will have little time to think about it,

crazy absurdities fly into my mind;

I’m already late for work…

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