~after paintings by John Lavery, Edward Hopper, & René Magritte

By M.J Iuppa

On stage, a small wooden chair sat upright upon a large stone chair.
Below, the audience basked in sunlight. People on folding chairs
appeared relaxed in anticipation. A man, leaning forward in the
second row, studied his program. He seemed stuck on a name.
Was it an award, a title? He didn’t look up from his resignation.
He knew nothing could be done. He was waiting for someone.
A definite no show. Instead, she found a public pool and sat on
a chair that faced the water. There, her life suddenly changed,
when she noticed women bathing in buoyant conversation.

* * *
M.J. Iuppa lives on Red Rooster Farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Most recent poems, lyric essays and fictions have appeared in the following journals: Poppy Road Review Black Poppy Review,Digging to the Roots, 2015 Calendar, Ealain, Poetry Pacific Review, Grey Sparrow Press: Snow Jewel Anthology, 100 Word Story, Avocet, Eunoia Review, Festival Writer, Silver Birch Press: Where I Live Anthology,Turtle Island Quarterly, Wild Quarterly, Boyne Berries Magazine (Ireland), The Lake, (U.K.), Punchnel’s; forthcoming in Camroc Review, Tar River Poetry, Corvus Review, Clementine Poetry, Postcard Poetry & Prose, among others. She is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College. You can follow her musings on art, writing and sustainability on mjiuppa.blogspot.