M.J. Iuppa


Minnows

All summer, long ago, she perfected her sieve’s quick dunk and lift to capture
a scoop of silver. Head-tail, head-tail— flutter & flash of minnows, no bigger
than an inch. Her hurry to flip them, without injury, into the waiting 5-gallon
metal bucket; wanting them to live long enough to boast of her day’s success
on the dock, where we’d compare our buckets, sloshing with cyclones of
tiny fish. She remembers being hypnotized by their race to nowhere. When the
setting sun hurried her home, she’d settle the bucket under the pines, knowing
there would be more of this, tomorrow.

M.J. Iuppa’s has forthcoming in 2022 a fifth full length poetry collection The Weight of Air from Kelsay Books in May, and a chapbook of 24 100-word stories, Rock. Paper. Scissors. from Foothills Publishing. For the past 33 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

 
 

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