Her black hair sparks blue
fire strong as her fingers pluck
threads from machine-woven broadcloth.
Not speckled egg blue, not baby blanket blue,
not four-petaled violet’s blue, not steel workers’ blue,
not the turquoise of Adriatic blue,
not even the star sapphire glints of candle’s burning blue,
but the blue
of Oklahoma’s lightning in thunderheaded sky
so dry
it crackles my crimson-streaked hair
as I sway in the tire swing,
and wait
for that one
sparkling streak,
brilliant
as that green flash
glimpsed through ruby,
that streak lightning blue
as the black of my mother’s hair.
