Gray Ladies, by Joan Leotta

Bliss, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada). 2014.

Gray Ladies

It's sharply daytime.
Noon
Sunshine from on high
cuts crisp lines from gray mists
it has whipped from morning 
and pastes them all around
as I walk. Shadows
My shadows
There I am as a student.
A young  girl.
Now, a woman shopping.
No, a woman going to work.
Hurrying, hurrying.
These shadows are walking,
running,  faster than my
tired legs can manage.
How is it so? Aren’t they 
a part of me?
I look about. No one else
can seem to see them as
they scurry about in a kaleidoscope
of bright colours.
Not really a surprise.
No one can see me either. Now
that I am old, I am but
a gray slow shadow of all
those former selves.

Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta has been playing with words on page and stage since childhood in Pittsburgh. She is a writer and story performer. Her Legacy of Honor series feature strong Italian-American women. Her poetry and essays appear or are forthcoming in Gnarled Oak, the A-3 Review, Hobart Literary Review, Silver Birch, Peacock, and Postcard Poems and Prose among others. Her first poetry chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, was just released by Finishing Line Press. Joan's picture books from Theaqllc, Whoosh!, Summer in a Bowl, Rosa and the Red Apron, and Rosa's Shell celebrate food and family. Her  award-winning short stories are collected in Simply a Smile. You can find more about her work on her blog at www.joanleotta.wordpress.com