Blue Poem by Diane Lee Moomey

It's not
that thoughts of being dead alarm
me, but that berries
bloom along my arms, created by the touch
of rose thorn. Yesterday
my young one eyed those scarlet lakes
like snakes. Not

terror of the Styx, but of the slope
above that shore and not the high
rough water but the certain slide
into it, my nights abiding close to home. Not

the dread of falling into dark
but simply falling: platform heels
I'll never try again, the bicycles. Of feeling
like old furniture, seams come apart,

left curbside. Not
punishment I fear but joking, here:
the blasphemies of bladder making cheer,
all this displacing sex (and even
talk of sex)but not the longing.Not

(believe my lie) , of silence in the tomb,
but of the shadow on the skin, the bloom
of deep cyan that creeps from fingers,
final blue of lips and nose and oh,
the sparse and silver hair
down there.