Mired

Jean Biegun

I write "Mired in Blue" and you, my reader,
see a blue, maybe a vat of mixed blues
sloppy, blurred and thick. You think

I might be blue, a blue
poet. You imagine many possibilities
but then suddenly remember

the dragging, dense midnight shade
of your marriage’s slow dying,
and that dark sky time your mother

murmured "I feel so blue" while she
waited in a two-bed hospital room
to hear a new doctor pronounce

the cancer word.
"Mired in Blue": the title makes you
read on for clarification

of what this writer means,
perhaps a fading pastel still holding
to walls like those in your almost-gone

daughter’s room, or a magical cerulean
that matches the eyes of a man
who strode confidently through

your office and your mind
last Wednesday exactly at 9:15.
You take so much from my blue mire.