After Ephesians 1:20-23, 3:18-19
I was careful as
a child,
always to color
within the lines,
those black
boundaries
without which
all order
in the universe
would collapse,
or so my mother
implied.
I was careful,
then, to keep
my reds and
blues
and yellows and
greens
(but not pinks;
I didn’t like
pink) and
violets and browns
and the rest to
fill what must be
colored but only
within
the black lines.
To slip the color
beyond the lines
was to intrude
upon the
formless and void,
waiting for the
hand of someone else.
