M. J. Iuppa - Prose - Poems

M.J. Iuppa   lives on Red Rooster Farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Most recent poems, lyric essays and fictions have appeared in the following journals: Poppy Road Review, Black Poppy Review, Digging to the Roots, 2015 Calendar, Ealain, Poetry Pacific Review, Grey Sparrow Press: Snow Jewel Anthology, 100 Word Story, Avocet, Eunoia Review, Festival Writer, Silver Birch Press: Where I Live Anthology,Turtle Island Quarterly, Wild Quarterly, Boyne Berries Magazine (Ireland), The Lake, (U.K.), Punchnel’s, Camroc Review, Tar River Poetry, Corvus Review, Clementine Poetry, Postcard Poetry & Prose, and Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen and Dinah Lenney(Norton), among others.  She is the Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College.

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​               He Didn’t Intend To Get Close
 
Complaints never clogged her throat, yet he imagined it.  He served a bony fish for dinner, knowing she was a refugee; yet, he was the one stuck in this bedroom community.  He met her  at a Huggers happy hour. Wine and cheese and skiing on a mountain covered in fresh snow— everything said, soft winter glow.  It all looked different by March. The truth was what he noticed when his half-closed eyes got a real look at her: Her wine-stained mouth never stopped moving, and her exquisite beauty mark— he touched her cheek— gone.


                                 Off-Kilter
 
1.Rollie-Pollie, armadillo of the bug world, rolled up tight as a pill. Terrestrial. Always on the right track— waiting to be discovered when a rock in the garden is lifted, revealing  night’s secrecy.
 
2. Women’s thoughts: deception is beauty in the woods where pink lady slippers bloom among fallen moss-covered trees.  Melancholy passes over the scene, wanting flowers that are as intimate as incidental lovers.
 
3. Bound and tied with wire rope, the gray boulder sits in a dry river of stones. Anchored by misgivings, it stays in the same spot. Years have gone by, still there, out of touch.
 
4. Sleepless night. I wander the rows of the just planted garden.  Is everything where I left it? Wind rinses over shadows, sending a chill under my nightgown.  I remember leaving you.

                   A Modest Proposal
 
I’m fond of found money. Finding loose change on the sidewalk, or folded bills tucked in the pocket of my forgotten jeans, or a crisp single in one of my books that was put down, then picked up just when I needed it most, makes me want to smile a lot, but I only grin a little.            I purse my lips, double checking the do-re-mi before I put it in another safe place.
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What could I do with a C-note? Buy groceries. Take you out to dinner twice, maybe three times.  Pick up a new shade of lip gloss.  Have a clear conscience in Goodwill. Hide it in my sock drawer.  Save it for car repair.  Go to a_______ concert. Steal away for two days. Think about it.