Blues in a Turn of Season
       

I've got the bad knee on the long walk,
      I've got sidewalk past the grand house
still empty after a fire, house that's got
      a yard of windfall apples,
fruit mottled rose and sun

bruising brown back down into the dirt,
      and how often have I missed
what the wind left? What the trees offered,
      what I had right there, in reaching distance,
my head tipped up to look for signs in the clouds?

My head pressed under January darkness.
      The depression took root
as I was turning seventeen. I've got
      that sadness on both sides of the family,
blues in the pocket of my new blue jeans

and running in the blue veins that travel
      my wrists, I've got a blue
bottle of gin and a list of bad decisions
      as long as both arms. I've got the leaves
leaving the trees, leaving their green

for fire colors. I've got hot flashes
      and the bones of an older woman, much older,
my body a wrecking ball at its own demolition,
      got three more streets to make it home
under blue sky that finds a way to rain.

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Copyright © 2021 Joannie Stangeland All rights reserved
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Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission