Our Courtship Was A 64-Count Box Of Crayons Poem by Michelle Claus

Our Courtship was a 64-count box of crayons –
one gorgeous array of promised perfection
that came with a built-in sharpener.

Yes!

We were giddy to draw a house and color it in,
Orange curtains in the windows,
Granny Smith Apple trees in the yard,
a Golden Rod sun casting rays from its constant corner of Sky Blue.

We’d landscape with Red Violet and Carnation Pink.

Our picture,
it would earn instant refrigerator status.

We Married, you and I, and our crayons,
they started breaking.
We peeled off their paper and colored with stubs,
but our picture wasn’t what we had imagined it could be.
Even the sharpener on the back of the box
didn’t really work.

Our scene was littered with bits of wax,
unworthy of the fridge.
We scribbled it over with Gray.

Into the fire of tumult we tossed our broken crayons,
and we poured our molten rainbow into a pillar mold.
Commitment as our wick, we now illuminate a new picture,
You and Me, as we really are,
imperfect … basic … Black and White,
a fresh canvas.

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