The Root Cellar by M.J. Iuppa

Unsettling, in this autumn chill, I 

wear layers of other people’s clothes
over my own.  I am not alone here.  

Yet, I am lonesome at the sink, peeling
an Empire that splits in two, exposing a few
black tears locked in its chambered heart.

To watch these slippery seeds fall on-
to this slow ribbon of skin that unwinds
like a staircase, landing on its last step

in a dirt cellar that holds what
granite markers cannot hold
for long.

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.