Blue and Black

There is this blue vein stretching down
her inner thigh to the ankle, a bright
scar running through white marble.
With her legs crossed under the kitchen
table, she stares at her splayed hands.
Squirming, her shoulders fight a blue
quilt, and there is a wind, moaning
the whole day, that rinses

her hair to blue and black.
There is the black fist of my dark
father, a fist always drawn back
from his shoulder, a rattle stuck
in the rear of his throat. I follow
his hands as he washes blue-tinted
drinking glasses and always see the same
blue-black sorrow in his eyes, sorrow
no shadow can hide. And the wind
moans today and every day.

I often forget that I have blue eyes.
Neither of them remembered me often.
Sometimes, I forget they forgot me.
I hear rumors of reds and yellows
and purples residing in the marrow
of dreams. And, when I wake, everywhere
I look I still see blue and the wind
moans every day, and today.

LeRoy Sorenson  was one of four poetry participants in the 2009—2010 Loft Mentor Series at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, MN, and a semi-finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. His poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Cold Mountain Review and other journals. 

LeRoy N. Sorenson

Mr. Sorenson published his poetry collection, Forty Miles North of Nowhere, with Main Street Rag. Finishing Line Press will publish his chapbook Railman’s Son, in March 2021. He won The Tishman Review 2019 Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize for Poetry. He was also a finalist in Naugatuck River Review’s annual poetry contest and a semifinalist in the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry’s Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry. His work has appeared or will appear in The American Journal of Poetry, the Atlanta Review, The Cider Press Review, Crab Orchard Review, Comstock Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review and other journals. He lives in St. Paul, MN.