This is the seduction of haystacks: 
sun’s shift melts dismal to beryl, warms to royal blue. 
A patient person can wait out the worst  
with a hot mug of coffee. A mere half-hour  
and everything’s new—I’m changing, you say.  
Amend: I want to change. You mean time  
brings a fresh canvas. Plum to pinot noir,  
fruit to ferment. But blue has already sifted  
through your body like a saltshaker—  
the blue-black of 2 a.m., rotted kernel,  
blemish blooming in the wort. What is the sidle 
from sorrow to pity, from never to unbutton me?  
What is the unbluing we require each morning, 
warming our hands on earnest talk? Maybe today 
threshed stooks will leach sublime: orchid at the edges,  
nectarine lap of grain. Maybe blue is also the color   
of singing someone you love to sleep. 
You owe me, I say, meaning promises are  
a locked room: shapeless shadows, 
all the furniture covered, contusions  
of dried flowers, ottomans like lumps of clay. 
If you can sway me, I’ll crack the shades, maybe. 
You hold your hurts like plucked raspberries  
in one palm. I hold your hand and try to read 
the creek of jam smeared across your skin. I don’t know 
what fortune means. We’ll see what the light lets in.