National Poetry Month --Day Nine

word group: autumn--skeletal--ballroom--frost

Late autumn
skeletal trees dance toward winter.
The ballroom floor is strewn
with pine needles
and leaves
that crunch like old paper--
the words of lovers
faded, erased.
Morning frost
dresses the limbs of the dancers
in bridal lace
their innocent arms
hold up gray cloud curtains.
I hunker under white fleece
not wanting to face
the crisp messages
of death in this dawn air.

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