M.J. Iuppa- Two Poems

 One Apple Among Many
 

If my appetite matched my eye’s desire
to smell, to bite, to taste what I’ve picked
loose from a branch high over my head, I

would hold its shape of plenty close
to my chest, hoping for a moment where
I am completely calm and able to carry 

this apple, cradled among many, back
to the kitchen sink without letting
it fall with certain explosion

onto the orchard’s eternal grasses.
If— my whole life has wagered on
the conditional tense— what would

happen if I took a bite? Would I
be closer to the man who taught me
how to dream?

How Do You Stop Her?

Bird fidget— bony hand splayed open then closed, thumb
curved in a lie: how do you stop her?

She pretends to know a great deal when she sees it:
the box of loose baby doll parts found in Goodwill.

Stuck eyes, smudged porcelain heads, matted hair, limbs
akimbo, such a shame.

A puzzle that’s out of place, finds a place on her shelf.
She’s sorting it out on Instagram.

Ne’er do well friends send her cryptic notes that she
reads with her lips to a cold glass chardonnay.

You’re not touching this baby, she twitters.

M.J.Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. She is Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor at St. John Fisher College.  Her third full length poetry collection Small Worlds Floating is forthcoming from Cherry Grove Collections, August, 2016.