Weathering by M.J. Iuppa

Seeing the empty swing, hanging from the black
willow’s thickest branch, I want to test its seat, I

want to steady myself on its warped wood & fly
out over the pond that rents the sky. I want

to lean all the way back, face up to sunlight
that seems to be caught in leafy-green

braids that sway, back, and forth, like curtain
call— this is it —I feel it in the pit of

my stomach, this memory of
feat, of encore, of swinging

into vast darkness.



M.J. Iuppa ‘s third full length poetry collection Small Worlds Floating was published by Cherry Grove Collections in July, 2016. For the past 28 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.