So[Harold] made a very small forest, with just one tree in it.The apples would be very tasty, Harold thought, when they got red.So he put a frightening dragon under the tree to guard the apples.It was a terribly frightening dragon.It even frightened Harold… –Harold & the Purple Crayon

We sit the rug in the middle of your little room
take turns roaring our mouths stretched
into big Ohs scaring the dragon and now
and then eating blueberry apples from
his special forest along the path

You take the little book and read out loud
in your expressive babble voice
words bobbing up and down
even as you hand me Peck,Peck,Peck
about the baby woodpecker learning his trade

want me to read it, too as you read along
both of us filling every corner with
words that rhyme and words that don’t
each rocketing to fill the space
corners and beneath the bed and
under the dresser where you hide
your favorite Itsy Bitsy Bunny
tucked tight with our imaginations

You pause long enough to launch
yourself into my lap then climb my back
until I have to tell you Granma’s not
your Momma and I can’t carry you
on my shoulders through the house
so you hang from my neck like a monkey
and giggle your fists full of my hair
that you slide down back onto my lap

Open Harold to his little pages full
of purple windows,
as I run my finger up and down
skyscrapers only to go back
to the beginning again and again
you loving the pages with the policemen
until we take to roaring again
attacking each other back and tummy

how we never tire of this space|
between us so full of a crooked moon
fingers clutching our big fat purple crayon.