The squalor of Lego

I thought we would have more scavenger hunts
and make dinner with ingredients that rhyme,

that my kids would look back one day
on their painted memories
of this pandemic
and tell their friends
my mom was so quirky.

In fact, it’s been
a racket of plastic,

most days spent without pants
in the squalor of Lego
while I try to get work done
in moments as thin as floss.

Yet if I let them,
they are my teachers,
showing me how to smash
the skeletons
of all my make-believe
worlds.