Shades – pink and
yellow – reflect off the water
to distract from darker fictions
entertaining my thought.

Next to me on the driveway,
melted from the now-dropping sun,
lies a crayon.
It cools slowly in a gap,

In a break that came
to pass just last winter when
water must have frozen,
expanded, then crack!

My fingers skim the ground,
tips startled by the texture of asphalt
contra warm wax, forgotten crayon
that seals the rift in our driveway.

It’s a Van Gogh-style
abstraction, echoing the tussle
of laundry in the dryer or on the
clothesline during a storm.

I stare back to the water knowing, this time,
I will conquer the tar most call night.