Everybody loves Stanley
With their mouths and with their eyes
they tell him he’s a Genius, but to me
Stanley only says: Goddamnit, Shelley!
When I struggle to open the grand wooden door
Of the Overlook Hotel
with a knife in my hand
my husband yelling, Psycho. Psycho. Crazy, Kill:
And Stanley loves Jack.
They exchange glances between them
building a bridge over my head
I clutch at the knife and
when we take five,
my hands are all red.
Vivian comes and I put on a smile
because Vivian pastes a
smile reversed
One made for a baby and says:
“These men,
am I right?
their little boys club, closed
up good and tight.”
She means Stanley and Jack
building a bridge over my head
when I open the large wooden door
of the Overlook with a knife in my hand.
But the Colorado snow drift interferes with the door.
What month is this?
I think it’s March.
I tell her:
“these are geniuses at work.
They’re doing what’s best.”
Vivian
not building a bridge
but digging a ditch:
“Serious, Shelley?
Genius? Genius?
I heard that word all my life.
They come up to me
on the street and say hey girl,
you dad’s a genius.”
Danny
from somewhere
calling me mom:
“I’m hungry.”
I kneel
I hug
And he wiggles away,
“Why are they yelling at you, mommy? “
“They want me to do my best.”
“You mean to open the door?”
“That’s right Danny. Stanley and Jack want me to open the great wooden door of the Overlook Hotel with the knife in my hand.” “Danny, you think my father will let you starve? Make you resort to cannibalism to stay alive?” “You mean… That we’ll eat each other up?” “Danny!” “It’s ok, mommy. I know all about cannibalism. I’ve seen it on the television.”
Vivian
takes off her gloves. Vivian
takes out a Vogue cigarette. Vivian
lights a lighter and smirks:
“You see that Shelley? He
Saw
It
On
The
Television.”
***
I was young and beautiful and strange,
Woody said,
and
Robert told me so too.
They didn’t want to sleep with me
but:
Fifty combs to each side
And:
My lips are beautiful
And my very dark eyes
beguiling and high
cheekbones
unique,
But:
I was thinking about …
the skeleton
under my skin
and the system of nerves
blood vessels and cells
and that in some dreams
teeth fall
but in mine hair is thin;
walk under a streetlight
and you can see my skull
If it weren’t for Robert and Woody
and Stanley and Jack
I would’ve
spent my days studying
the anatomy of myself-
though translucent skin:
on the slab
whispering
to me
at night:
Have more babies
***
I tried to put lipstick
on a cigarette break
just for myself
to feel like a woman
and Vivian
Came like a grizzley:
“What are you doing? put
that shit away.
You know what would happen if my father‘ll
see?”
She always had it in
for me
digging ditches.
“You look ridiculous,
Shelley.
Like a skeleton;
Goddamnit,
dressing up.
Put it away
Be a professional.”
Then she lifts the camera
“You gonna wipe that
away
and be a professional,
Shelley?”
I wiped off the lipstick
as I opened the large wooden door of
the Overlook Hotel
“Here. Let’s get you all nice and white now,”
says the make-up woman, and I love her
and daydream
and drift
she put on wake-up
making it
skullier.
Wake-Up. Is it my mother’s voice I hear?
The warm breeze through the trees
and scratch
of cicadas through
the summer night’s skies.
Wake-Up,
but I want to keep on…
should’a
Never listened to Robert
in Nashville.
and I’m again in the doorway,
trying to open the large wooden door
of the Overlook Hotel.
It’s snowing outside and
Jack is behind me
swinging that axe
Stanley is there, and Vivian
too,
swinging that camera:
I am wearing this dress
It’s
Window curtains.
My hand numb from cold,
my hand numb from the knight
But it was Stanley standing up-front
surrounded by crew,
lights in my eyes, and
snow in my face,
not Professor Knight from Biology
And a
knife clutched tight
in my hand and
an axe wielding Jack
coming to get me
from the Colorado lounge,
Stanley’s face turning red
and my wrists turning red
And Professor Knight
from Biology
puts the frog on a slab
and I think it’s a girl frog
and I tighten my grip
on the scalpel
and
the Knight and
Stanley, yell:
cut!
Shelley, Goddamnit!
— Amir Naaman was born in Israel in 1984 and since 2012 lives in Berlin. He has published short stories, poems and plays in Hebrew and English . His first novel The Hummingbirds was published by Tangier press in 2020 and will be released in Germany in autumn ’22. He works as a personal trainer in a gym in Berlin-Neukölln. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram.