When Gray Is Beautiful and When It’s Not by Trish Saunders

I live in a city where ghosts of giant Douglas fir spear
themselves up through grimy sidewalks. These ghosts,
the real cause of winter storms, slip quietly through
cobblestones, looking for osprey that died eons ago.

Winters here never end; gray falls everywhere–
beards on old sailors, pin curls on my grandmother’s tiny
head. Gray is beautiful, I tell her. Trust me, it’s not, says she. 
In particular, gray pubic hair is ugly. That frontier I have yet
to discover, but I shall, I have no doubt that I shall.

First published in Right Hand Pointing.

Trish Saunders publishes poems from Seattle and Honolulu and, in her imagination, from the shores of Crater Lake, Oregon. Her poems have been in Califragile, Pacific Voices, Right Hand Pointing, Eunoia Review, among others.

Art by Jenn Zed.