Changing Season

Changing bathrobes from light to heavy,
Changing sheets from cotton to flannel,
Changing the heavily linted furnace filter,
Changing the clocks to fall behind.

Waiting for the first crystal frost, 
Waiting for tulip bulbs to arrive,
Waiting for Canada geese to fly overhead,
Waiting for the buckeyes to fall.

Waking to see the cherry trees bare,
Waking to see mums darken and bend,
Waking to see the harvest moon’s last rays,
Waking to see the fall assembly of stars.

Parting from my first love at nineteen
Parting from a second in the Shenandoah,
Parting before the pact was sealed,
Parting a last time while love remained.

Charting the days of my lived life,
Charting the stiff limbed stirring,
Charting the delight in early loves,
Charting the pain of lost lovers.
                                        -- Sam Doctors

SLIVERS OF SOAP

Wet palms 
coax perfumed lather
from their alligatored sides
and I wash my face 
from the bones
of bath bars 
others would discard.

Friends smile.
Grown children assign 
a motive 
to my penchant 
for using things up–
the penuries of my youth–
but they miss the point.

When life 
has worn me thin 
and brittle as this soap,
may someone 
need me still
until 

I break in the hand 
or dissolve 
in a fragrant act 
of comfort 
or delight.

                                        -- Yvonne Postelle