Lisa Tulfer

                  There is a certain kind of blue

                  that happens at six o’clock on a February

                  evening, when the sun has slipped

                  off the edge of a clear day, trailing

                  strands of candyfloss clouds – improbably pink –

                  leaving behind a grey dullness that feels like

                  a bereavement.

                  Then

                  paradoxically

                  the sky begins to brighten,

                  gains a depth not only of colour but

                  of dimension, and as the colour

                  shifts from grey to blue it begins

                  to glow, luminous, greenish at the

                  horizon, indigo overhead, striped

                  with lines of cloud now darkest

                  midnight against the cerulean

                  blue. The bluest blue, bluer

                  than a Cornish bay, bluer

                  than the skylark-thrilling sky

                  of summer, lying in the grass,

                  squinting sunwards, bluer even than

                  my lover’s eyes. Backlit blue, achingly fleeting,

                  the blueness reaching a climax, unbearably

                  intense and then suddenly

                  dying,

                  fading,

                  becoming flat,

                  two-dimensional.

                  Now Prussian,

                  darkening,

                  dark.

                  And into the darkest blue

                  a sickle of silver rising, cold

                  and clean, scything across the

                  stars to gather the last blueness

                  and leave the sky

                  black.