Every day we'd sit
to the soothing voice
of the afro man,
dabbing his brush
into happy little bushes.
Now those happy little accidents
are gone far away from you,
so far, his 'fro
seems nothing more than
a bush on the side of the road.

Describing his wispy voice,
the gentle stroke of his brush
brings a vague smile,
but only just,
a mimic of the joy that comes
to my lips as I
reminisce,
selfishly
before you.

A child then,
I barely knew my colors;
yet you helped me
bloom a rainbow garden.
And when I knew my colors well,
you embraced the forests
I drew in blue,
the models of spacecraft
from distant worlds,
imagined by foreign minds.
I wept only once
in front of you,
a rare tantrum for a childish thing.
You cleared my tears
and left me beaming in my new
ballcap.

Older now,
I describe the colors to you;
you recall the meaning of two
or three.
Life has turned you
back into a child:
screaming outwardly,
weeping inwardly.
The things you know you should know
escape you,
things now beyond
your comprehension.
Decades upon decades
you experienced the magic
your fingers could bring to the
canvas of our lives.
The watercolors now bleed into
vague puddles of tan,
oils run thick and drip,
matting the carpet.
You tantrum against the loss
of yourself
as I dab your tears
and offer you the hat
of my memories
to sustain you through the fog
laid heavy around your head.

So I tell you the story
of the afro man,
dabbing his brush
into happy little bushes,
and we navigate this
not-so-happy little accident
that is you
lost on the last leg of your
life journey,
hoping my smile
will stay contagious to you
until that last step
that breaks the haze
and brings you home.