Uncultivated
By James Hannon
April 15, 2023
April 15, 2023
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Hardly an orchard,
the back yard of the invisible old man where we ran to steal pears impossibly sweet though our parents said they couldn’t be. Hidden in the shade we picked the living as our sneakers squished the fallen, defying the black and yellow bees. Friends, rivals, and new kids consumed the danger, juice, and jubilance and became a tribe. We took what we loved inside us and kept it through the year. When we passed each other in a hallway or mall, we’d give a brief, affirming nod. |
James Hannon is a psychotherapist in Massachusetts where he accompanies adolescents and adults recovering from trauma, mood disorders, and addictions. His work has appeared in Blue River, Cold Mountain Review, Psaltery and Lyre, Soundings East and other journals and is forthcoming in Ekstasis, Friends Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Vita Poetica. His second poetry collection, To My Children at Christmas, was published in 2022 by Kelsay Books.