Coloring Book
When little CJ comes to visit
She asks me for her "colors,"
The bright, fat crayons that "nanna" keeps
In a recycled butter tub.
We share the color book; CJ scribbles
on the left, the crayon squeezed tightly
in her tiny fist.
I color on the right, carefully converting
the puppy outline into a masterpiece
of paper art.
The puppy must have chocolate brown;
The grass and trees need green, of course.
I stay within the lines, modeling correctness.
CJ helps me--smearing first a purple nose
on her kitten's face, trailing to my page
to add a purple splash to the tail
of my puppy.
I never am quite finished
when she decides it's time
to find new pictures and begin again.
I doubt we'll ever finish those we leave behind,
but I haven't the heart to tell her
she might be wasting pages or coloring them wrong.
Mayhap, our lives would be none the worse
for errant purple outside the lines
or a few pages left unfinished.
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