Stacey Dye

The tangerine sun
peers through the trees.
Wisps of lavender and pink
stroke the sky

and the dawn is a giant
impressionist painting.
Pulling my hair back
I check for new lines—

signs I smiled
just a little more yesterday
than the day before.
My eyes still have that

indeterminate hazel glow.
Not green, not blue,
but somewhere in-between.
Still at fifty-three

I’m thirty-something.
Clad in my faded jeans,
my favorite ragged peace tee.
I close my eyes, and inhale

the fragrant steam that tumbles forth.
Long, languorous sips of coffee
coat my throat, warm my body.
The sweetness of tea olive wafts in from my garden,

rosemary’s scent drifts in from the window box.
Over the cup’s rim,
the sun has breached the trees
and morphed into an exotic yellow.