Standing over the open can
on the driveway, its lid posing
as a palette wearing a soppy brush
ready for touching up,

I think of all the paint I’ve applied
in my time to walls and boards,
porches and chairs, though not
nearly as much as some I’ve known.

And here comes my father carrying
a can of light green paint for my little
sister and me to apply to our playhouse,
showing us how to lay it down real nice,
my mother coming along after him to
catch the runs, point out the sags,
the “holidays” where we missed a spot.

And now the husband pops in, the one
who teased me about the sissy pink
I’d inadvertently chosen for the exterior,
and, after painting half the house,
insisting that it’ll be just fine—it’ll fade—
you’ll see, Toots.

And it did, as will the bright purple
now gracing the house next door—
though I don’t want it to fade, any of it.

I want the bright beginnings, the shiny,
the smell of possibility, to stave off
the inevitable, to somehow wrangle
the impossible into the attainable—
more time with those holding
the brush, making something old
new again.