The Blue Jirl

Here's another from my long sequence about women, "Frissons".


The Blue Jirl

She is neither cold nor hard and her dog
Is just as blue as she is. The color blue.

She is more conscious of her blueness
Than aware of her own nekkidness, her

Long and boney nose, her four fingers
On her left hand and six on her right, or

The little potbelly she rubs like a magic lamp.
Blue light and blue water and burnt orange

Beach beyond her canted hips; the dog’s
Head bars my eyes from seeing their darkened

Wedge or what I must only assume is dark.
She has a tiny moue of a mouth and no eye

Lashes; a scar runs from her chin to her
Left breast in a graceful curved smile.

Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing not
The perfection of the odalisque tradition.

She simpers and whines, though, quite
Out of keeping with her stateliness, her

Sang-froid, her attention to the moment,
Which is keen as any Zen priest’s

In its sucking up of all that she creates.
She rises, she walks, and her dog follows.

Her rump glitters gold and a white star
Floats between those two cupped crescents.

She turns and says, “My wit-dream, you.”
And for the first time all is clear and all

I have ever wanted of love smashes her
Out of all memory, leaving only her blue.