The Spider (After Calder's sculpture of the same name)

                           Suspended in space

                                    dangles
                                        a
                                     daddy
                                   long legs

                            of fairy wing grace,
                     black dancing shoes splayed
                                ready to jive

                                       and
                                      sway

                          on its fine metal lace.


                           Lean closer and see
                        some feet oddly shaped,
                             a thorax, a head
                             not really there.


                                       An
                                      idea

                               stirring the air.




Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Star Wars Defense

There is a black and white photo
of my fourth grade class with me,
hands folded politely as directed,
sitting in a coveted front seat.  I count
five rows lined straight for fifty-two
students.  These were days of ducking
under furniture when air-raid sirens
sounded.  But our school was ancient
and we only had old-fashioned desks
connected to each other like rigid
railroad tracks: cast iron and wood.
They were so cramped that precious
time would have been lost attempting
the impossible.  Instead, we were shielded
by the heavens above.  Even God wouldn't
dare defy Sister Mary Joseph as she led us
in prayer for protection from our enemies,
yardstick propped against the wall.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Lions in Winter

We would pelt the frosty glass
with snowballs to hear their roars
mingle with our shrieks

as we skidded down the slippery
service road certain they were
bounding behind us

escaped from their prison
of quartzite block, barred doors
and windows thick as fists

only to turn around at the far end
with frosty breaths and pounding hearts,
sneak back and pester them again.


Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Star Gazer

Comet-like axons light
my brain,
orbits protect my eyes
and two tiny moon bones
curve my palms.
Like a planet my body
harbors canals and gasses,
coronas and rings.
During a tempest, nebulae
may cloud my corneas,
penumbra lurk in my lungs.
Orion girds himself
with the Trapezium cluster
while I hold it in my hands.

The MilkyWay and DNA,
our elegant shapes.

Karma

Asthma thieving my breath and still I drag my feet before I start the steroids.  How can such a bland, aspirin-like tablet release the hounds of hell?  Okay, maybe not Dobermans with spittle enough to fill a spittoon but, surely, the vice-grips of a Pit Bull or two with snarls.  Nightly, they cramp my legs as I bolt from bed to shake off the demon pain before I collapse wide-pulsed and eyes pounding, shake loose an insomnia that careens between rattling 'frig and striking clock.  Yet in the ER I routinely prescribed these very pills to even the youngest of wheezers.  Perhaps the weary curses of midnight mothers with unnerved darlings pumped on prednisone carry some weight after all.


Marilyn Aschoff Mellor