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Groundwork

By M.J. Iuppa

The fence that wasn't a barrier, that didn't hold
anything back or up, but was the grid over the scene of

smoke rising, smoldering from September
to December, as the slow green trucks crawled

back and forth, churning up gray dust, heaving
lumps of cement, twisted iron beams, crushed

glass, bits of paper floating in the swirl
of tires rumbling past us, who stood on iron milk crates,

straining to see into the pit, staring into the silence of
the gathering crowd, into the rainless faces,

the on-going thoughts, what couldn't be imagined
or said out loud, not now, not in that hour, or the next --

faces still searched the blue patch of sky, that gaping
space above it all, and right before us, the fence

that held a single sunflower.
Added: Thursday, July 3, 2014  /  First published in Le Mot Juste Anthology, 2008, and appears in "Within Reach" (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010). Used with permission.
M.J. Iuppa

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. 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.

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