by Bonnie Naradzay
Blue letter paper, the shadowy blue
of Egyptian hieroglyphs, a folding
of hands. October morning in Paris –
complete, supportless blue.
In Van Gogh, the self-contained
blue. Listening and thunderstorm
blue in Cezanne, bourgeois cotton,
opaque bluish white, greenish blue.
Cobalt patterns, certain tones,
light cloudy bluishness, heavy
dark-blue stripe, this rolling of red
into blue, hydrangea petals, waxy
blue of Pompeiian wall paintings,
densely quilted blue, heavenly
morning glory, Nabokov’s butterfly,
ice-blue gloves of the riot-armed
INS, worn to frisk immigrants caught
working at Swift meat-packing plants.
Prison-issued denim of the inmates
replacing them, paid 60 cents a day.
Crying the blues. Slope of curved hills
full of revolt, Blue, Blue, Blue.
Bonnie Naradzay has a poem in the February 7, 2007 issue of JAMA, a poem in the Spring 2007 issue of SLAB, and poems in numerous online journals. She is a student in the Stonecoast MFA program and seeks signs of hope for this dark planet.