by Nina P. Honorat
Everyone knows blue is the colour of portals.
So find the bluest place you know:
a handicap parking space in the
empty Dollarama lot of your hometown
the lake from that vacation in southern Italy
where water and sky make
a tapestry of grey-blue tweeded jean,
your father’s favourite Hawaiian teal monstrosity of a shirt.
Find the black so black it’s blue and sit with it.
Breathe el azul clarito of the floating gardens of Xochimilco.
Bow your head in the Blue Mosque of Istanbul.
Stay suspended in air and
Nothingness while swimming in Port Dover,
Middle of nowhere Ontario.
Count to ten – slowly
And remember the first time
you flew
into the arms of
a loved one that is no
longer with us.
Remember
suspended Coroico clouds,
waterfalls hemmed in
by thick-tulle jungle bush.
Remember blue glitter on
your birthday card – the
year you no longer needed
birthday cards.
Remember
acrylic blue of
your friend’s nail, baby blue of
your nephew’s baby shower,
bright curaçao blue of
your first binge.
Indigo candy wrapper when you lost
your first tooth.
Blue of a hospital
gown,
that night you weren’t there to
say goodbye to your own grandmother:
the blue that didn’t make it to the funeral
the blues that did.
— from Juniper Volume 2, Issue 1