Stephanie Angelini

headline of the Boston Globe

I think of her

speaking to herself in Russian

her son propping up his salt and pepper temple

on the edge of the upright piano

left in the hall between the bathrooms

and the cafeteria

I stop

to watch him watch

her familiar slender fingers

slipping on yellowed keys

white and black

open ended dashes

curled in her wheelchair

like a question

no one hears

she makes noise

notes, chords, rhythm

a syncopated stiffness

the last clear drops

from the bottom of the cup

Stephanie Angelini is a writer, performer, artist and local small business owner in the Boston area and is active in the Salem writing community. She hopes to one day to get her cinquain about a goldfish owned by Sartre published, which she considers hilarious but which no one else gets. But until then she has been published in Ascent, Third Wednesday and the Journal of American Poetry as well as the Mom Egg Review and Brittle Star.

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