Defining Even

By M.J.Iuppa

 
 

1.in the beginning, her talk was small– nothing too serious, mostly about horses, about pleasure riding in the country, seeing fields & woods through the optical illusion of two perked ears.there, on a back of a horse, she found balance. 2. sync– that is, in sound & harmony, the juicy suck of giddyup, the even clomp of hooves. 3. music to her ears & everyone agrees. 4. an evening hour of bliss, her coon cat curls in her lap & purrs, poor world, poor world. the next day he disappears. footprints zigzag on the hood of the neighbor’s red corvette. he’s left her a note about her cat. 5. in her mind, loss is the thunder of ice heaving on the lake. she can’t make its steady pounding stop. she watches the red corvette parked on the street. 6. still missing. she buys a five pound bag of sugar. 7. hands that can handle a horse’s delicate mouth peel back the sealed sugar bag, uncap the gas cap, and pour, clean & even. 8. inside she hears the muffled choke & gasp of the car’s engine. she peers through the crack in her curtain. small drama. the door slams. the tow truck arrives. 9. she smiles. this is getting even. she hears a low yowl and a slow scratch on the back door.

 

 

Copyright ©2015 M.J. Iuppa.  All rights reserved.  Do not reproduce in any form, including electronic, without the author’s express permission.

Note: This story was originally published in Quarter After Eight.


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AUTHOR BIO

 

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 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.com.