Note: This poem is best viewed on a Desktop Computer with widescreen.
The week before he was born
I dreamt only in blue,
like paint names the images collect
at the foot of my brain
:
Water’s Edge, Cloudless Sky,
Swimming Pool Blue,
Veranda Blue-Blue.
Water travels faster than the body,
propelling it forward—a protest.
Always different, the kinds of blue
:
water crashing through our living room window,
barefoot in an alley in the rain.
Always different, the kinds of blue
not unlike the shade he was born with,
the shark blue when he came out.
A nurse announcing:
Your baby’s life is in danger,
you need to push
now
.
Death rides alongside the body. A fortune
cookie decision.
Is he alive? I asked
…yeh, my husband says
because if he said it, it would be true.
When he lies, he looks left. The
whites of his eyes,
the blue.
But I wasn’t in the room.
I was on the lake—
goddamn Lady of Shalott,
the boat filling with blood,
their voices
falling off a dock
:
Is he breathing?
I am breathing for him,
the tiny balloon
filling his body with air
pumping him in and
out, pumping up and
down . . .
Did you ever dream you were drunk driving?
And wake up in a car?
Did you ever dream you were drunk
driving
and not wake up at all?
When a doctor lies, it is a diagnosis.
When a husband lies at a bedside, it is a promise, a
protest,
a dream somehow
waking,
from the
blue.
***
Photo by Jong Marshes on Unsplash
