You Came Out Blue

You came out blue,

filmy white wedding veil

Cone headed pencil top

Is it a boy or a girl?

Don’t care

Not then, not now

Hold you till you 're breathing

and my skin

turns you pink

You smell like the rain

A red wristband

The first time I write your name

So we don’t lose you

Like I could

Like I would ever put you down

Jam on toast, cold and purple as a bruise

I am too empty to eat

Too tired to chew,

The smell of my father’s shirt

Copper and flint

As he hugs me,

Congratulations

A year later and

he’s gone

The green book means go

A tick against our name and we are home

To familiar sheets and yellow curtains

That turns our room gold with the dawn

And lonely black, backache feeding at 2AM

I am

Never alone now

Though frequently lonely,

I am

Climbing frame, familiar place, peacekeeper

Silent weeper, wondering,

Am I doing anything

right?

But you came out blue

And my love turned you pink

And I think,

That’s a place to start