I drew pictures when I was four
Crayon on construction paper
The refrigerator gallery of childhood
Stick figures and sunshine and houses
My mother saved them in a box
And I found that box at forty-one
Sitting on the floor of her emptied house
Going through them like archaeological strata
The first dozen were normal
Family portraits, the dog, the yard
Then the drawings changed
Around the time I turned five
A figure appeared in the background
Tall and thin with too many limbs
Standing behind the family in every picture
Getting closer with each successive drawing
The crayon prophecy was drawn in wax
Before the hand could understand the image
The crayon prophecy documented
What was coming twenty years too early
By the time I was six
The figure filled the page
The family was gone from the drawings
Just the tall thing with its too-many limbs
And beneath each drawing
In careful letters I was just learning
I had written descriptions
Of events that had not happened yet
The fire in the kitchen in 1994
The accident on the highway in 2003
Each disaster rendered in crayon
Years before it arrived
The last drawing in the box
Is dated three days from now
I know because the handwriting
Changed from childish to adult
My current handwriting, my current hand
Drew a picture I have not drawn yet
Of my childhood house rebuilt
With the tall figure standing in the doorway
Welcoming me home
In a house I left at eleven
That collapsed at twelve
And according to this drawing
Is standing again
With the lights on
And a door that opens
To a hallway I remember
Being much shorter
Than it appears