Echo

How strange each day

to return to a spot

every morning & look out

upon the yard that has re-

vived overnight & realize

that my body hasn’t.

I pick up a stone sitting

on the sill’s ledge & think,

turning it over and over

in my palm, just as I did

so long ago on a beach

not far from here, that

its ageless like igneous

granite, not to be taken

lightly; yet, I did take

it, and put it in my coat

pocket, as if no one

were looking & brought

it home to let it sit on 

the sill & wait for me

to rediscover it, like

today, thinking it’s

good that it is always

where I left it, waiting

for me, like the light-

switch,  like the coffee

pot, like another day

caught in the clatter

of hands-at-work, to

know its story better

than my own. 

M.J. Iuppa is the Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program and Lecturer in Creative Writing at St. John Fisher College; and since 2000 to present, is a part time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport. Since 1986, she has been a teaching artist, working with students, K-12, in Rochester, NY, and surrounding area. Most recently, she was awarded the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, 2017. She has four full length poetry collections, This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017), Small Worlds Floating (2016) as well as Within Reach (2010) both from Cherry Grove Collections; Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003); and 5 chapbooks. She lives on a small farm in Hamlin NY.