Blue Monday

Diane Wakoski

Blue of the heaps of beads poured into her breasts

and clacking together in her elbows;

blue of the silk

that covers lily-town at night;

blue of her teeth

that bite cold toast

and shatter on the streets;

blue of the dyed flower petals with gold stamens

hanging like tongues

over the fence of her dress

at the opera/opals clasped under her lips

and the moon breaking over her head a

gush of blood-red lizards.

Blue Monday. Monday at 3:00 and

Monday at 5. Monday at 7:30 and

Monday at 10:00. Monday passed under the rippling

California fountain. Monday alone

a shark in the cold blue waters.

                     You are dead: wound round like a paisley shawl.

                     I cannot shake you out of the sheets. Your name

                     is still wedged in every corner of the sofa.

                     Monday is the first of the week,

                     and I think of you all week.

                     I beg Monday not to come

                     so that I will not think of you

                     all week.

You paint my body blue. On the balcony

in the softy muddy night, you paint me

with bat wings and the crystal

the crystal

the crystal

the crystal in your arm cuts away

the night, folds back ebony whale skin

and my face, the blue of new rifles,

and my neck, the blue of Egypt,

and my breasts, the blue of sand,

and my arms, bass-blue,

and my stomach, arsenic;

there is electricity dripping from me like cream;

there is love dripping from me I cannot use—like acacia or

jacaranda—fallen blue and gold flowers, crushed into the street.

                         Love passed me in a blue business suit

                         and fedora.

                         His glass cane, hollow and filled with

                         sharks and whales ...

                         He wore black

                         patent leather shoes

                         and had a mustache. His hair was so black

                         it was almost blue.

                         “Love,” I said.

                         “I beg your pardon,” he said.

                         “Mr. Love,” I said.

                         “I beg your pardon,” he said.

                         So I saw there was no use bothering him on the street

                         Love passed me on the street in a blue

                         business suit. He was a banker

                         I could tell.

So blue trains rush by in my sleep.

Blue herons fly overhead.

Blue paint cracks in my

arteries and sends titanium

floating into my bones.

Blue liquid pours down

my poisoned throat and blue veins

rip open my breast. Blue daggers tip

and are juggled on my palms.

Blue death lives in my fingernails.

If I could sing one last song

with water bubbling through my lips

I would sing with my throat torn open,

the blue jugular spouting that black shadow pulse,

and on my lips

I would balance volcanic rock

emptied out of my veins. At last

my children strained out

of my body. At last my blood

solidified and tumbling into the ocean.

It is blue.

It is blue.

It is blue.