After an Overnight Shift

I recently read The Good Hand by Michael Smith. The memoir of a man who decided to take advantage of the boom times in the oil fields of North Dakota. It proved not as easy as he thought. Being a 24/7 operation, the various jobs demanded workers on the graveyard shift. A connection I could relate to.

After an Overnight Shift

Exhaustion

dogs my bed,

drags me from the sweet

flowing waters of oblivion,

grabs the muscles in my legs

with pointed incisors,

hauls me back to the shore

of dayshine where sleep

vanishes like water vapor,

leaving me to listen 

to garbage grinders,

back-up beeps, and barking

dogs down the street.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Soul Flying

March has a reputation for windy days, and this past weekend was no exception. A good time to fly kites for those daring enough to harness the bluster.

Soul Flying

Jacket tightening gusts

send winter dirt skittering

across empty fields

and kick up dust to smudge

the sneakers of kite runners,

bouncing on rushes of frisson.

Shouts like bubbles of champagne

rise on lusty breezes, hitch rides

on trailing tails, threads of magic.

Colors vivid as scarlet tanagers

and goldfinches at the feeder

take flight above laughing

faces, sometimes muffled

by the masks we wear. Still,

a time to crack open spring.

Kite flying and "socially

acceptable distancing" natural

as an eagle freewheeling

on the wind.  

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

In the Wake of Yesterday's Storm

This is for all of us who had to put up with yesterday's messy weather. But, looking on the plus side, we know that March snow is simply a prelude to spring.

In the Wake of Yesterday's Storm

How much hope the notes

of a songbird hold,

those first to find my ears in early March.

Enough to shrug off a windshield to scrape,

the wet shoe of slush and wonky, winter drivers.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor 

Recipes

Recently, as I was making banana bread from a tried and true recipe, I couldn't help but remember an idea my mother put forward. Good cook that she was, she maintained her secret lay in the ability to simply follow a recipe. I now suspect it was her way of apologizing for banishing me from the kitchen when she cooked. 

Recipes

Directions for apricot souffle

or a quick cassoulet,

sticky buns, peach pies

and even oven baked French Fries.

"If you can read," assured my mother,

"you can cook." And with that she

handed me a daunting tome,

an unopened book free of any dog-eared

pages or telltale drips that might guide

this new bride on a lifelong journey.

                            *

Decades later with both covers gone,

batter spots and sauce spills speckling

the pages, it dwells unused on a shelf.

Too many gelatin concoctions,

too heavy on the cream and butter,

too old school. And yet I cannot trash it

for what it imparts: memories

of a gift given from my mother's heart.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Elixirs, Tablets and Salves

At this point, I'm more than five years retired from the ER, and yet it is still a part of me. I see the ads for various drugs, and am glad I no longer have to deal with parents pestering me to prescribe one of them for their child. Some days it was difficult enough just to choose a simple medication.

Elixirs, Tablets and Salves.   

Cellulitis on a baby's buttocks.

His mother late for work

keys in hand, waiting

for me, the sorceress,

to settle on a fitting drug.

The book of potions grows

fatter each year

as do warnings portending

all manner of rash and tic and death.

An admonition from me

to take all medicine as instructed.

But will they?

And why

does the eye of newt

now carry a Black Box Warning?

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor