BLUE

My handmade quilt is a blue Grandma’s Garden pattern, my couch is blue, my staircase carpeting is blue and so is my dining room wallpaper

So it’s a treat to walk outside, after being locked in the house, to find a beautiful blue sky. The surprise, as I take my daily walk, is to find all the blue fingers. Hey, I recognize you from all the days I spent visiting my husband, a patient in Lenox Hill Hospital. Doctor enters the room, blue gloves on. Nurse enters the room, blue gloves on. X-Ray technician wheels in his equipment, blue gloves on. Food arrives, with someone already outfitted in the blue gloves

Back in the neighborhood, notice all the discarded squished blue fingers here and there. Blue squished fingers in brown muddy water, some sunk and some floating on top after the rain. Discarded blue thumbs up sitting on the neighbor's lawn. They are surrounded by young purple blossoms poking out of new green grass. Further along, there’s a squished set of blue fingers reaching for a dandelion. Two blue fingers pointing together seem to be a duck’s bill.

Back in the house, my box of indigo blue nitrile gloves, artifacts of the science fiction era in which I live, is open and ready to supply me with a sanitary and safe way to open my mail, newspaper, packages and Meals on Wheels.

Ethyl H.

May 2020