Rainshower scours pebbled canvas

Chalkscrawled ribbons untie their colour

Pink and yellow houses collapse

onto smiling peach people

Mommies with their bug-eyed girls

swim past Daddies towing crewcut boys

 

Thunderstorm sets families adrift

until picture resembles

Mommy's makeup on her sad days

 

Tears press at both sides of window

Artist drew no purple canoes, no aqua waterwings,

and the only dam she understands

is the one Daddy shouted out

 

Swirling mists blur erasement

Chalkstrokes devoid of backstrokes

whirlpool their way beneath

absent Buick

parked in empty drive

 

She misses floating in plaid padded carseat,

able to but glimpse tip-tops of scrolling scenery,

follows cracks in concrete clouds

opening

to watercolour spring flowers

 

Sound of frontseat argument

dispelled by frollicking thunder

 

Rainbow screams only children can hear,

return artist's eye to chalkscrawl's demise

She squints at drowning rainbow

searching for gold,

missing,

like the ring on Mommy's finger