Olives

Olives

Dark, pungent, purple-black skin

Covering a stone.

The soul's tongue tastes bitter fruit.

Carolyn Frances

Fall

Fall

Leaves turn across the road in twos and threes

Like kittens tumbling and pouncing on each other's heels.

Orange tabbies and Calicoes.

The breeze teases them with strings of air

Until they lie in tired heaps,

Drowsing in the winter sun.

Carolyn Frances

Solitary Mourning

Solitary Mourning

Her upstairs window bleeds darkness each morning

As sorrow's suitcase is packed against the shuttered emptiness.

The house is freshly painted and clean against the sky.

A calm wind shifts through the trees.

She entertains upon the porch all summer,

But in winter no one enters the smoke filled room of her heart.

Carolyn Frances