Color my life with trouble,
and sketch yourself a rough exterior.
Acrylic confidence is undermined by
gouache vulnerability
I have told you so –
Still you depict with pastels.
Sculpt a mold into which we can both fit
(but only with struggle).
Frame for us that graphic feeling,
the one we've now forgotten.
I have tried to enclose myself in your arms, but –
The sculpture refuses to hold.
Your eagerness was betrayed by those charcoals
Whose movements can only cause smears;
I say go on, design some strength
Before my tracing fades.
Draw in this diffused air
and let us sleep under vivid skies
before this first draft is revised.
After all,
the love you pen in is the one you pencil out.