Bluer than Lake Louise

from Good Morning America

Dear Zoe--

This morning I read about a family
of blue people, something in their blood.
If they had had a little more of the "thing,"
it would have killed them;
a little less, no one would have known.

How are you?
Did the Minnesota snow ever fall?

It is Ash Wednesday, and here in Brooklyn,
foreheads are smudged,
and people are mumbling promises.
I think of all the things I could give up:
chocolates and coffees,
the internet, old desires.

Luna was the bluest in the family.
She birthed 13 children
and lived to be 84.
Luna, Luna. 
Her skin was bluer than Lake Louise.

I remember my brother's lips
turned bluer than blue when he was cold,
and I remember a moon following the car,
and I remember thinking my mother's eyes
seemed more violet than blue.
I remember when I first met you.

Any day now, my second daughter is due.
(I am eleven shy of Luna.
I am huge; I am scared.)
Come home soon.
Brooklyn is blue without you.

N.