Blue by Gail Dorrington

Catching my breath- heart pounding

My excuse is a photograph.

“Are you trying to kill me?” I gasp.

She only smiles wryly

“It’s good for you!”

She is fit and slim.

“So, what colour would you call that?”

She asks.

I hesitate.

I almost blurt out- well, blue-bell blue!

But that doesn’t describe the indigo shaded places

No- it’s deeper than that

Yet lighter than talc in the powdery bright.

More a feeling than a colour.

The scent is a  remembered hug from my Mother

The blue a flash in her eye

And like an adult I am holding back

Wanting to run as a child

Into the middle of all the blue and be lost

Untouchable blue!

As she is now today, her birthday

A million twinkling ice blue candles

And the blue shifts

Slipping into adolescence the newly bathed baby

As a wistful sigh

Held there for a moment on the breath.

A kiss that begins slowly

Pulling you deeper into his arms

Down into a warm blue

Mauve, lilac, feathery-pillowed bed

I breath all this in.

And to her question I reply

“BLUE”.

Gail Dorrington