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Blue

by Carrie Snyder

morning arrives
it is stupid and glorious, this thing
brazening through the windows
it's a passing car loaded with strangers
howling joy or grief
who can tell
your boyfriend turns to you and asks
why are you so goddam sad all the time
and you say i don't know
your coffee is black, dammit, black
and you like it best that way
your entrance into this world need not
echo any martyr-like presumptions
i don't care if it makes sense, you say
and he turns to you and asks
why are you so blue
in his vocabulary blue means down & out
piece of poo, sit and stew
in yours it's this:
indigo, smelt leather, foul foul wind over a field of
grain, waist-high grain, green and growing grain
darkened by summer, a promise you can't keep
a promise you cannot keep
i love you
i'll be there for you
i mean it

why suffer that way, why open your skin to such
opportunities for betrayal
ahhh, you sigh
you prepare yourself for explanations
you pretend it might matter on income tax forms
the edge enters and you relax over it
you relax into it

Carrie Snyder works in the Books Section of the National Post. Poems appeared in spring '99 issue of the The New Quarterly.

THIS WORK IS COPYRIGHT OF THE AUTHOR.