Simply Blue

                            Inspired by Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude #9

by Rayna Brown

And all
of a sudden
I have tired of being blue.
And not even
Kind of Blue, like Miles composed
or blue-black, or even feeling blue.
I am sick of my flesh
the flat and,
empty, panels of stone,
prints of aqua on aqua
like coats of house paints
dried completely and re-applied. My
skin the product of smooth
limestone, of the divine,
the intermarriage of rock
or metal, wax, ink, grease. Paint.
Thick daubs of one color flattened smooth.
I am 2-D as in Too Done
as in I am overdone
as in I am endlessly repeated
as in I am no longer original.
Clothes confine like shackles of cloth
smothering the vibrant hue of me
as I am thrown to the wayside, to the dogs.
I recline, with
Legs like hambones, thick enough to bite.
My breasts firm and at-attention yes-please
touch me. It’s been a while.
I am a seductress with gaps in my flesh
like white teeth
or shafts of razor sharp cloud.
I am pieces pieced together to make
a whole and yet I could be nothing
but what I am
and I am blue.
Two toes, half a hand,
on arm plastered to my forehead in agony,
or perhaps ecstasy.
The seducer of men
of a different hue or perhaps
as blue as I, Cerulean, Cornflower, Midnight,
Navy, Sapphire, Ultramarine…
these I fold into myself, plaster
into my skin print by print
and all of a sudden
I tire of nothing
but the loneliness of a white page
punctuated by the blue swell of my naked body.