Blue

A coy moon glows beyond
swags of moss, streaks of blue

underglaze dangling from dark
blue limbs of cypress trees.

The swamp is a wash of blue fog
around the base of a Newcomb vase.

Look closer: a blue house
daubed on the swamp's blue shore,

where a man sleeps
in cobalt dark, a man

with a white face, coy hands
blue in the room's shadows,

in the blue and humid air.
A vase glows on the oak

sideboard, dark blue luster—
something he might use,

were it not for the blue
night, the blue sky,

the glaze of dark blue trees.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Madden All rights reserved
from Signals
The University of South Carolina Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission