The Afternoon Hour

(For my mother) 

You colored me 
sienna, azure, 
a shape I was becoming, 
a bird, perhaps, 
a cloud, 
a field of trees. 
I don’t remember much, only 
the low table, 
how we knelt, 
how you held the crayons 
like flowers, 
tipping color, 
a petal pouring rain.