My Blue Affront by Keith Mark Gaboury

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My Blue Affront
by Keith Mark Gaboury

Flush out of Kaiser Medical, 
I’m a single mother 
with Bluejay’s cerulean clothed body
a twin to the sky’s wavelength blue.

On a Geary Boulevard block,
a man fresh from the hospital 
in dark denim jeans 
blurts out words that cut,

“your son is so cute!” “I have a daughter 
and Bluejay’s XX chromosomes 
mirror each other 
like my delivery room reflection.”

“You’re hysterical. She must wear pink! 
I’ll tape my pink 
invoice form to her chest.”

I step away across gray concrete,
drive home on a park-lined 
San Francisco street. Hours later
under a baby pink sun, I dress Bluejay
in sapphire blue cotton.

At Trader Joe’s on Geary and Masonic, 
Bluejay sleeps in a stroller 
up and down winding aisles. 

Surrounded by colored fruit,
a woman in a shocking 
pink dress stops us short.

“Your son is so adorable!” “I have a daughter
and Bluejay’s XX chromosomes 
sprout anew on their tree of female growth.”

“You have a brain hemorrhage. 
She must wear pink! I’ll squeeze a grapefruit’s 
pink juices on her.” In a maternal flight, 
I flee from this dripping sting. 

At Ace Hardware on 2nd and Geary,
I look left, look right
in the paint aisle’s color envelopment
for the perfect blue
to paint Bluejay’s bedroom.

We rush past
the concentration of pink shades
where a childless heterosexual couple
brushstrokes toward us. 

“Your son is so precious!” “I have a daughter 
and Bluejay’s XX chromosomes 
jointly sweep across their canvas.” 
“You’re having a stroke.
Do you need help? You need help.” 

While the wife pins me back,
the husband pries open a can
of Baker-Miller pink, douses Bluejay
awake and wailing in pink engulfment.

“Now to pay for our Gender 
Correction Service, we’ll accept
one simple payment
of your next born child.” 

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