Ephemeral Art
William Ogden Haynes
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His mother was always cleaning, removing his creativity
like so much dirt. Her rag erased the alphabet he

finger-scribbled on the dusty dining room table top.
The boat he made of twigs was pushed off the front porch

by the corn broom into the bushes. He made a fort from
a sheet draped over a card table, played in it one day

and it was gone the next. She didn’t like the refrigerator
door littered with art work, so his sketches and paintings

had to be stored in a plastic tub under the bed. She made
him wipe down the piano after he practiced to remove

any fingerprints, concerned more about the instrument
than the music he played. When he died, she cleaned

his room from top to bottom, got rid of all the toys,
even the plastic tub of art. And years later, she

frequently reflected on his brief life. He had been
just like one of the stick men he often drew on his
​
exhaled breath covering a cold window pane.
A drawing she had always quickly wiped away.