The Bluebird Motel

A pretty summer dress and your cancer hair
growing back. You look like a movie star in those shades,
like Jean Seberg in Breathless, in her pixie cut,

so fresh and unforgettable. (We need not fast forward
to that sweltering car parked along the Champs Elysees,
nor dwell upon the stench of personal brutalities

visited upon the suffering.) At this very moment,
children are picking blueberries in Rhode Island.
Slip some into your mouth; the taste is dark, rapt,

and musky—a blue cantata, singing “You are healed,
strength renewed.” It’s really almost hard to believe.
I can’t wait to go blueberry picking with you in August.