Özge Lena

Toxic Blue

Gênes, the French word for Genoa,
might be the origin of the word “jeans”. –Wikipedia

Last dusk before the wildfires
devour the Mediterranean.
We are having pizza margherita
in a seaside ristorante in Genoa,
the wine is the shocking pink
of the burning sundown.
The boss is wearing faded jeans
and I say this is a crime,
jean factories are bleeding
rivers toxic blue to produce
these perfectly faded jeans.
His ice blue eyes stick in my face.
Silence drops on the table
like spilled wine.
We watch an anthracite curl
of smoke over the hillside.
A gull drops into the crimson sea
and doesn’t rise.

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Özge Lena is an internationally published poet who appears in The London Magazine, The Madrid Review, Mslexia, Hunger Mountain Review and in numerous magazines and anthologies across continents. She recently presented her poetic approach, "Catapoetics: Poetry of the Catastrophe," at the International Conference on Poetry Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, following the publication of her catapoetry article in Modron Magazine, UK (2025). Her poetry has received Pushcart Prize, Editor's Choice Award, The Best Spiritual Literature Award and Best of the Net nominations and was shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, The Plough Poetry Prize, Ralph Angel Poetry Prize and the Black Cat Poetry Press Nature Prize.