The school year is over now,
but Charlie says
we have to keep working.
I start feeling a little crazy
when I can’t draw.
I feel the pictures
stacking up inside,
and they do funny things.
When I look at
the magnolia out front,
I see it in black and white,
like it’s a pencil drawing
and not a tree.
I guess Charlie told
Aunt Bee about no pencils.
Aunt Bee walks in today
with two big bags
of art supplies.
Regular pencils, and graphite
and charcoal ones, too.
My lips smile wide,
like they are swallowing
my face.
and lines the table with
bright and dark colors.
Charlie picks up a red tube.
Paulie doesn’t paint, she says.
Has he ever tried? Aunt Bee says.
I shake my head.
Well, why don’t you try? she says.
She slides all the tubes
back in the bag and
starts toward the door.
She carries all those paints out back,
behind the house and the dead garden
and almost to the edge of the woods,
where my daddy’s shed sits,
shining silver in the light.