Blue
After a Painting by Picasso (Blue Period).
In blues and greens,
a woman bends over her knees.
She aches in cold colors.
Sunlight brushes the break
of her back where winter never warms.
I conjure her tears,
face sunk in fenced arms,
feet tucked beneath the canvas.
I imagine she's spent;
a ragdoll shelved since childhood.
She assumes the same hung face
after losing her stuffing ansd stitches;
gutted and consumed.
She cannot see white relief
in the upper edge,
beyond her arm-pressed eyes.
It pales in matted brown, spills out
a window; gets trapped
in scratched glass and paint.
Lisa Dewey