Poem for a Blue Page

By Janet Jagger

Once in a moon
Blue, Joni’s best, saddest
Songs are tattoos.

Baby blues and blue babies,
Postpartum hues
From powder to midnight, blues.

Little boy blue
Now fills his horn
With dusky blues,
The black man’s song.

Summer mothers paint blue shutters,
And reap the blueberry barrens,
A sky like Mary’s robe.

Janet Jagger

Janet Jagger writes memoir and poetry. She is also a mother, wife, reader, volunteer, business partner and antiques dealer. After working for many years in Development and Museum Events at RISD, she continues as a Museum Associate. At Central Congregational Janet manages The Bursting Pomegranate, a shop selling gifts and crafts from artisans in developing countries. She is part of the Thursday Writers Group of Little Compton.

“Poem for a Blue Page” was written for a poetry class at Brown in 2004; all students were given this title and asked to write a poem for it. This is Janet’s riff on “blue.”