Image courtesy Universal Pictures
Stage Glass
His stare
the stare of the dead
gull tied to a wire
above my head.
I can stand this.
The seagull launches
like action
at my nose, so
a scream hurtles
into the scene.
The beak breaks through
(his stare)
the telephone booth
a burst of slivers
a white star
in the shape of his claw
glass flies
I can’t move
silence
clutches into my cheek
my eyes!
(his stare)
the slice of skin beside my eye
prick-speckled.
The bird hangs
dumb of its crime.
It exhausts the day to tweeze out
(his stare)
the glittering lie.
After The Murder
Pregnant with importance,
nose like a plinth, he slips
from behind a column
when I least expect
his hands.
After the murder,
he tries to will himself
into the vodka we share.
Chortle down my throat
and soften my thoughts.
I am hard, I know,
as a beetle-black sedan
rolling away from my own funeral
with well-wishes intact.
Look Out
As if I view an alternate vista -
crowded with roses,
a soundtrack of applause,
he wants to climb inside me
and look out from my eyes.
Does he think the mountains
hulk less from here?
I see: problematic promontories,
crows diving at my brow,
a figure with seven pairs of hands
pointing at my sternum:
action,
a striptease,
a snip of skin.
Doesn’t he know the mountain
with a crown of letters
we’re asked to bow to
is his body?
I see too, my daughter
in every tiger imprisoned
by the movie studio.
One day, I will
let loose every claw.
Hitchcock Wishes Melanie a Happy Birthday
On Melanie’s seventh, Hitch slips
a coffin across the tablecloth
at our favorite restaurant. Open it,
Little Melly he drools, hands tucked
together like doves. She lifts the lid.
Inside, the face he took
exactly mine shrunk to Barbie’s size,
a stiff-limbed “Melanie Daniels.”
The green suit like grass on the grave.
Now you can play with your mother
Melanie drops a fry into her soda.
even when she’s missing…
Gallery Vertigo
The museum is a kind of patriarch:
balding, white-washed, classical.
A cold knee on which to perch.
As if having a soul isn’t sufficient,
explanations disrupt the white space.
Don’t you find florescent uplights exhausting?
If, as a woman, I sit in the gallery,
do I become the object?
Depends who’s circling,
considering my face painted
three hundred years ago. In fact,
the premise fails, for the painting looks
nothing like me. I’m tired is all.
That’s why I’m stuck here,
waiting for the man to stalk out,
for my chance to proceed
to the graveyard in peace.
Shari Caplan (she/her) is the siren behind 'Advice from a Siren’ (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) and the forthcoming "The Red Shoes; a phantasmagoric ballet on paper" from Lambhouse Books. Her poems have swum into Gulf Coast, Painted Bride Quarterly, Angime, Luna Luna, Lily Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Poetry at Lesley University. Shari’s work has earned her a scholarship to The Home School, a fellowship to The Vermont Studio Center, nominations for a Bettering American Poetry Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She proudly serves as a reader for Lily Poetry Press and as Madam Betty BOOM for The Poetry Brothel in Boston. Keep up with her at ShariCaplan.com