April 18, 2012CrayolasRobert Harlan Wintroub

Don’t fresh crayolas carry the day?
White, red, green, blue, and black.
A single row in the stiff orange box,
and later, double-rowed
brown, pink, yellow, and gray.

Then once I proved myself mature
the box eight rows deep
with shades of color I never knew
lavender, canary, silver, chartreuse,
with squared-off points
and paper wrappings colored to match.
My fingers tear a piece at a time
to extend and unsheathe more of the
color behind.

But it’s such a struggle to keep them straight
once two have been removed,
and if a bunch are out,
no one least of all me
can ever again order them anew.

If they came with numbers
I would know what to do!
The sequence would be easy
but who can remember
whether the greens are to left
or the right
of the blues.

Crayolas are meant to last a year
—if one is careful—
uses broken fragments and peels
the paper off the last little bit
but has anyone among us
even the most poor
used Crayolas up
before demanding new?

Haven’t we all
done what we had to do
to show a box deformed
with stumpy fractured remnants
paper covers gone
ends rounded and cracked,
to win a new and grander box.

Sometimes, I dream of
plunging my hand into that box most incredible
Burnt Siena, Viridian,
Cadmium Yellow, Ochre, Vermillion
Chromium Green Oxide and Sepia,
Phthalo Green, Prussian Orange,
Cyanith Gray, Sepia, Terravert, and Antaverne Blue.

Sometimes I dream
of what I should not dream
of alizarin crimson edging
obsidian black silk,

of stiff milkwood
and soft musk brown
of the taste of Cabernet
the scent of French perfume.

Perhaps the time has come
to put the crayolas away.