2 Poems//Mel Connelly

Strange Development

The cartilage of my baby’s head has hardened into cement
cells colliding like demons on a ceiling who’re warded off
from their escarpments, going to the gates to heaven.
Something’s amiss, can’t put my finger on it.

I’ve passed a quarter of my life
before I realized who planted this ache in my stomach
like a lily in a vase the day before an angel
calls, fresh upon receiving messages. What was in that
spaghetti? The iron foot sinks, my hair falls out,

my voice empties, and we cannot escape this palace
with no tapestries. Every cherub strikes
a drum, and my baby sucks my nipples dotted like strawberry
potatoes. My baby wakes, orders more drinks.
My baby’s all grown up, unlatches accordingly.

Veronica Knows

Slight grime and bent posts.
You’re just describing the world
now, sans effort. To bring
together through direct opposites–
liaisons, vowels and consonants.
Each word, a gesture, the
slow big hand and all the
technology behind it unseen.
What about
this pigment? Blue, back
to it, slanted writing, italics
gesticulating
with crab hands and
pants so short that
hairy ankles are revealed. This
is not paint
thinning, but the specks
showing linen, the woman
holding the cloth
with a savior’s face,
armpits unshaven.

Mel Connelly is a lesbian/feminist poet, archivist, and art historian who grew up in West Georgia. She was born off of I-20, where a Home Depot replaced a hospital (her mom used to say she was born in a Home Depot). Mel holds a master of fine arts in writing from Columbia University. Before that, she studied art history and English literature in Atlanta at Georgia State University. Now, she lives in France where she studies medieval manuscripts and the digital humanities. Her poems have been featured in Sinister Wisdom, Screen Door Review, Poetry South, Delta Review, and others.