Jane Blue has been published recently in The Montucky Review, Pirene's Fountain,

FutureCycle, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Stirring, and Avatar. In the past she has appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, The Antigonish Review, The Louisville Review, Quarter After Eight and quite a few other places, both print and on-line, including anthologies, books, and chapbooks. Blue was born and raised in Berkeley, California, but now she lives near the Sacramento River with her husband, Peter Rodman.

 

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Another Fiction
 

She walks out for the first time in weeks, feeling
ashen, feeling bandaged.

There’s music in her brain but she can’t get it out.
Some strings, some horns.
Ump-ah, ump-ah, ump-ah…

She walks past the fountain with the Gorgon head
like the headwaters of augury.

Everything is starting to bloom, the coral
crabapple, pure red of early camellias, and the creamy
calla lilies ready to unwrap their shocking golden stamens.

The old magnolia jammed with stars,
at first palest pink, then ragged white,
like a bandage.

A line stands out from July:
“A sudden terror of the clutches of trees.”

But now the trees are bare.
Jettison the past, she thinks. Immerse yourself
in the profligate odor of violets.

And oh, the forget-me-nots, she forgot them!
Pale blue as the sky.

When she gets home, she’s different, she feels
raw and new, the bandage peeled off
her eyes, her wound.