She takes a little blue pill on Wednesdays
and Saturdays—gray on the rest. Today
in the Northwest, signs of blue are disappearing
into the smoke and clouds of winter.
Even the Steller’s Jays have abandoned
these woods, leaving crows, barred owls
and juncos to chatter among the last
of the berries on the blue spectrum, sweet
summer jewels in shades of dying.
When she swallows a little blue pill on Wednesdays
and Saturdays, her bed is less inviting.
We walk by the Salish shore
scavenging for mussel shells, seabird tracks,
bits of glass. Restored, she feels like that jay
extending her beak toward winter
preparing a hermitage out of discarded
feathers and frayed prayer flag strips,
the ink faded into unknowable requests.
