SOMETHING BLUE 

by Lee Smith

There is a certain blue,
more a type than a shade, 
grown in regions where mountains are both high and low,
and the fog grows so thick
that dreams become trapped.

It is blue mixed with a little branch green.

This colored fog swirls when illiterate school-age girls walk through it, 
going about a house held together with planks and paste made from flour that has caught mold.
Borders between house and field and yard are so soft 
that the same weeds grow everywhere, 
little and insidious and green.
At night, this boundary is the door:
"Don't go out there, missy".

Even roughly cut and unevenly cut bacon
tastes of the blue and green that define morning and this place.
Dresses once colored something else 
fail to be dresses at all over time.
Their stripes cover over with coffee circles 
that grow and bloom like mountain flowers.

So girls here weave their lives out of vague damp stories
involving sticks and scraps of bible paper.
Words in lost languages are spoken in front of smoky fires.
Something blue sparkles in a dark place.
There is the sound of walking on leaves,
female feet sifting dirt around.