INDIGO: WORKED BLUE Drenched Renée Gregorio blue-tinted hands of the Dong woman wove my worker's pants, pulled me into her back room lifted the lid on a huge barrel to reveal a glutinous mass of bubbling indigo the fermented scent of that cauldron still in my nostrils pulse of indigo that beat in her cuticles the pool of stormy blue those pants leave in the washwater and when I wear that blue I wear that woman's sweat, her tribe's afternoon of singing, her daughter's smile and her fancy garb at the festival the sound of a wooden mallet pounding the deep blue cloth into a shimmer blue of what we wear and how we wear it blue of the veins just under the skin's surface on the backs of her hands blue of storm clouds' underside in afternoon sun fjord blue high-mountain blue deep-wave blue as it crests and falls over itself the blue of refusing blue of forgiveness hakama blue as she rolls away across the mats Billie Holiday's blacky-blue voice blue of love that grabbed me from behind that I could not refuse blue of willingness and yes and the long blue of marriage flame blue that asks the best of me river blue and blueberry pie blue the offerings of a mother blue worry-blue and letting-go blue blue of what remains when love walks out the door blue of a bright new apartment blue of a father's aloneness the worn blue velvet of his unused trumpet case blue of the stone in my marriage ring and the blue waters of the Bali Sea toward Menjangan blue of vertigo as we swam away from the safe reef to the open abysmal waters swimming despite the ground of dark beneath us navigating blue courage masquerading as sunlight filtering through blue water to shine on the skin ©2010 Renée Gregorio