Aria

Aria

by

Janette Schafer

I let your sheet music sit

atop the Bechstein where you left it,

one corner slightly raised

where it rests on a champagne bottle

made into a vase for a silk orchids.

The cadenza is stained

by a ring of dribbled coffee.

The cup’s mouth is dusty

and I have no heart to raise it

lest I smudge the print of your lip.

Janette Schafer is a playwright, opera singer and poet living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She is a 2017 Maenad Fellowship awardee in creative writing from Chatham University. Recent and upcoming publications include: Eyedrum Periodically, Nasty Women and Bad Hombres, VerseWrights, Zany Zygote Review, and Chatham University broadsides.