Poetry By Ken W. Farrell

Gerry DIncher CC




The Time for Coloring

We cruised across Denver in that gold Datsun 
duct-taped plastic flapping over the long-absent 
wedge-window, and the highway air buffeted me 
where I curled in the way-back

Village Inn, Mom groused to all of us,
to no one really, to I-25 and the rollicking
horse trailer that cut her off

Us five shimmied into the semi-circle 
maroon booth, tussled over three half-crayons
hastily dropped…Without sitting down,
Mom ordered pancakes for everyone

We bickered, swapped colors, sipped orange juice,
and Mom left the table slipping into a nearby booth,
and I saw him—just the back of his salt-and-pepper
crew cut—for the very first and the last time

While they talked, her bloodshot eyes—accidentally
I caught her looking past him
I caught her looking past him 
accidentally at me
again at him, past him,  
again at me

I stopped bartering crayons
stopped coloring inside the lines
then stopped coloring the kid’s menu all together
staggering my crayon-hand to, across a napkin,
and fro, scattering violet, 
skewed crescent-moons over the table
a consoling caress 

Mom returned with furrowed eyes, said--
                                                                                       I raised a stilled hand
the time for consoling, over
the time for caressing, over 
and no one rescued the twilight 
crayon rolling away with itself

Yes: the time for coloring was over.

​


​Colorado-born, Ken W. Farrell lives and writes in Texas, his work appearing in journals like NonBinary Review, Pilgrimage, and Synkroniciti. Ken holds an MFA (Texas State University) and an MA (Salisbury University). Recently, Ken has been volunteering as an English conversation-buddy for Ukrainian refugees, and he still works to meet his daughter’s challenge to stop adding more and more to his first novel—a tale of an orphan navigating a speculatively surreal and otherly-natural world.