I began the labyrinth mandala
At age five
In a kindergarten
With eight
(8x1) large  Crayola Crayons
And twenty four other children.

Winding through mazes
And dot to dots,
I solved small mysteries
With Encyclopedia Brown,
And helped a goose
Find her golden egg.

And somewhere along the clips and corners
I graduated to 64 Crayolas
(8x8),
And only twenty in the class.

And now I find myself back up,
Or down, at the top,
All alone,
With 4,096 colored pencils
At my disposal.
(8x8x8x8),
Lying askew and irately akimbo
That I can't use them all at once
On the strange pages of this adult coloring book,
In which I struggle to stay
Very outside the lines.

-jenn