fall
My father taught me the seasons
are named for fruits:
naseberry season begins in May,
March marks the start of Mango season,
overlapping with plum and guinep.
Star apples ripen into purple baubles
in time for Christmas.
The coconut matures to a brown sphere
you must chop and husk
to get to the moon melted in its middle.
One June when the days had just begun
to smell of the fallen fruits, he died;
the first tamarind shaken off life’s limb.
Lying on his back, a half-hollowed,
brown man with an opening in his side
and blood streaming from his belly like ants.
Topher Allen is a poet and short story writer from Jamaica. His writing explores grief, mental health, and the layered cultural and historical experiences of his Caribbean upbringing. He is an Obsidian Foundation Fellow and Scottish Poetry Library feature poet. His work appears in the Nashville Review, Montreal Writes, Magma, adda, Poetry London, Ambit, among other journals and anthologies. Topher won the Poet Laureate of Jamaica: Louise Bennett-Coverley Prize for Poetry in 2019 and was shortlisted for the London Magazine Poetry Prize in 2025.
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