David Olsen

WHITE CEILING*

Listen to Audio Version read by Sean Mahoney.

Mornings in October,
she gazes through a double-glazed
window at a solitary tree.

Colours fizz on this twig or that
with random effervescence.
Inert on the hard roadbed,

fallen seeds waste their potency,
while leaves wave weary goodbyes
and summon the city's sweeper.

Confined in the glacial discontent
of Wyeth's winter light, she projects
endless cinematic imaginings

on a barren permafrost screen:
a bleak treeless tundra,
the ceiling above her bed.

*Previously published in Unfolding Origami.

David Olsen's 80-page Unfolding Origami (2015) won the Cinnamon Press Poetry Collection Award. In addition to three chapbooks from US publishers, his poetry appears in journals from both sides of the Atlantic. A polio victim and CFS patient, David is a playwright and poet with a BA in chemistry from University of California-Berkeley and an MA in creative writing from San Francisco State University. He was formerly an economist, management consultant, and performing arts critic.