Aria Di Bravura


The yellow light bulb sways on its grimy string, the click of on, the click of off switching in her heart. A waterbug scurries over worn linoleum, a sleeping child, an absent husband, how to commit suicide. Wet dirt in corners, the sour smell of sweat, a car starting in the night. The devouring fear, the nothingness of self.



From the tightly-tucked corners of her sleeping self, a shadow glides, passes into a world unseen. For moments uncounted, unbearable, the shadow lingers. Underneath its thin blanket, it stares into waking night. Sooty toes curl. Long fingers cup her face, a chinning bar. She doesn’t scream until her stalker swings, feet first into her bones.



All night she hides, bruised, hollow-eyed…perhaps not all night…perhaps between the grey, white, black, between the colors, between the spaces, between the blanks, she slips.



One by one, she swallows the plastic-coated pills. Demanding frogs croak. A smile struggles to curve itself on her lips; she thinks they rejoice to be heard in the darkness.



Grandma's Station


Elizabeth loves the
Vampire State Building,
the Na Yark pretzels,
and the polar bear
swimming laps
in the Central Park Zoo.

She says she loves
taking the train,
even when it goes
down into
the dark tunnel
leading into
Grand Central Station.

She's only five.
She holds Grandma's hand
and kisses her
until
she sees the lightness
herself.


(Appears in What You Cannot Have)

A workshop Leader for The Florida Center for the Book, and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Lucille Gang Shulklapper writes fiction and poetry. Her work appears in many publications, as well as in four poetry chapbooks, What You Cannot Have, The Substance of Sunlight, Godd, It’s Not Hollywood, and In The Tunnel.