by Jim Ross
FALL
Once we lived among apple trees.
Tapered ladders tipped into two-toned leaves.
Red fruit, we twisted stem from branch,
set each side-by-side in canvas bags.
Never drop them or they’ll bruise
the farmers warned us.
Our son, tee-shirted in a red wagon
flew too fast down the rutted hill
catapulted into air.
You leapt in time, rolled him in your arms.
Grown father grown son How did you spin apart?
Forty years on you slipped each other’s hold
barren space between you
no gathering bag.
Nancy L. Meyer (she/her) is a 2020 Pushcart nominee, avid cyclist, grandmother of 5 from San Francisco. Recent journals include: New Note, Gyroscope, BeZine, Book of Matches, Laurel Review, Sugar House Review. Forthcoming: Black Moon Magazine, Outcast, International Human Rights Arts Festival, Decolonial Passsage, Kind of a Hurricane Press, Frost Meadow, Nebraska Poetry Society Open Contest. In 8 anthologies, including by Ageless Authors and Wising Up Press.
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding research career. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in seven years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, hybrid, and plays in over 175 journals on five continents. Photo publications include Barren, Burningword, Camas, DASH, Kestrel, Litro, Feral, Stonecoast, Sweet, and Typehouse. Jim and his family split time between city and mountains.