Self-Portrait in Blue
I am that blue the blood is before
it hits air. Serene sorrow of the vein
delta back of my hand as a blue dawn
seeps from the night. Blue as the third
note, the mi, bent minor to weep
from a harmonica’s reed, blue irony
pulling the fifth flat too till it’s full off-
key to get us all into that blue room
where at least our aches will mingle
like the blown smoke blued by a neon
Blue Ribbon logo lit up in a window—
I am that blue of this oceany planet
shot from a lonely robot photographer’s
orbit, blue of such saturation not
one neural net out there won’t turn to it
from the everywhere-else-speckled dark,
blue the high circuits beam down in pics
of our fratricide cyclones and prison
cities, face of the Earth blue as the blue
baby choked on its birth fluid, blue
gleam on the two-edged stainless blade
my father shaved with, teasing death—
I am that blue shade of these vapors
who gossip and titter just to my left
ever since I first met the blue stare
out of that portrait, my mother’s father
dead by her thirteenth year. Blue
as the metallic swirls sold as blueberry
in the cold dome of vanilla reward
for finishing off my slice of brisket
despite its blue-green iridescence. Blue
haze of the distance. Makes you look,
blue. Like you might see through it—
Jed Myers is author of three books of poetry, most recently Learning to Hold (Wandering Aengus Press, Editors’ Award, 2024). Recent honors include the Northwest Review Poetry Prize, the River Heron Poetry Prize, and the Sundress Chapbook Editor’s Choice Award. Poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, The Poetry Review, RHINO, Poetry Northwest, Southern Indiana Review, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Myers lives in Seattle and edits the journal Bracken. www.jedmyers.com