by Emma McCoy

It was when the trees started thinning like balding heads, losing leaves as if they’d never done it before. You were walking to that noodle place on the corner with the low-cholesterol options on a carpet of dead hair-leaves when you passed the bus stop. A woman was listening to something that was making her sway in place.  

Maybe if you hadn’t just turned fifty, or if the bus had come earlier, or if the grounded leaves hadn’t looked quite so old, you wouldn’t have sat in the restaurant until the sun went down, humming something you couldn’t remember.

Emma McCoy is a poet and writer doing her very best. She is a peer reviewer for The Whale Road review and nominee for the AWP Intro Journals Project. Her work can be found in places like Flat Ink, The Jupiter Review, and Paddler Press.