February 2008

Windless
morning, still cold
layer of privacy
fresh snow sifts unconsciously—
powder.

Sitting in winter's dark, listening
to wind chafing
beneath old clapboards,
and thunder of the town's plow
scouring its way down the road's
ribbon of darkness

like a battleship navigating
its way west,
in spite of snow,
in spite of its dim lantern light
until it disappears

and open fields stand
unmarked, glistening
under the swell of the moon
riding the wake of navy
blue clouds, leaving
a trail of shadows
that settles in the corners
of an old farmhouse.

Dwindling winter afternoon, walking
in the park where anapestic beeches
line the path to the lake's shore,

sunlight radiates within clumps
of red osier and feathery
pampas grass.

The stillness contradicts hours
of last night's wind sweeping
the littered beach, clean.

Gulls weep and circle as we
look at this lonely
expanse, at love's initials
gouged into the beeches'
silvery bark and wonder
what is cursed here . . .

Standing on sand, we
have separate thoughts.
The temperature,
strangely mild.
I turn away from you
to find a loon's feather,
black with two small windows
of white on its tip.

A prediction.
I hold onto it
and don't say a word.

M.J.Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Her recent poems accepted for publication in the upcoming anthologies: From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright, edited by Bruce Hendricksen and Robert Johnson, Lost Hills Books (12/2007); Eating the Pure Light, Poems honoring Thomas McGrath, edited by John Bradley, Marsh Hawk Press (2008); The Poets Guide to The Birds, edited by Judith Kitchen and Ted Kooser, Anhinga Press (2008); Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, edited by Holly Hughes, Kent State UP (2008); other recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Comstock Review, The Potomac Review, Puckerbrush Review, and miller's pond; creative nonfiction forthcoming in Gulf Coast and a poetry review in Tar River Poetry. She is Writer-in-residence and Director of the Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College, Rochester, New York.

This is M.J.'s second appearance in
The Centrifugal Eye