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If for once, I could write without blue—

no robin’s egg dressed in washed morning,

no linens set out to dry on the line. Could write

without December, which is the bluest month,

and without night’s muse spooning me

into wispy thread, needling star into star

into morning’s sleepless breath. If I see a mirror

in this poem, the mirror, like everything,

turns into blue mother. My mother, in her dress

scolding. Write something else, she says, and I do

write about her mouth that bent once

over my forehead, her fine fingers around my

wrist showing the size of my bones. But

not here. Here, the egret stands in the flattened

swamp—which is all green and brown

against the migrating white wingspan.

The feathers scattering won’t be here long.

A few months left until the snow.

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