Shelley's Last Word

Now smile said the cameraman as I puckered up my lips
I did my level best, but I'm telling you dear reader, hanging high over ground
With a shepherd's hook levitating me by my clothing
Did not afford much comfort. Hallelujah, baby!
The shot was snapped and I could drop down to stage
Except the pulleys were tangled and I was stuck

A dozen feet looks more like a hundred when stuck
in mid-air. My shirt hung askew, my lips
turned blue as the dutch boy paint that the stage
crew was using on the set. Green for ground
and blue for sky. Simple-pimple, baby!
I was ready to squeal like a stuck pig as my clothing

began to rip. That's one way to make a scene san clothing.
But not one that I wanted to make. "Hey, I'm stuck!"
I yelled. Then Arden Mulski howled, "I can see your baby
fat!" I leveled him a stare to grow hair above his lip
if he'd been man enough to do it. Little blob on the ground.
But he had one over me, he was standing on the stage

while I hung like a treed kite. A real stage-
hand saw my predicament, my rapidly ripping clothing,
and raced to the control pit underground.
"No worries," she hollered, "I'm flipping the switch--stuck!
I'll be jiggered, it's stuck!" I saw her lips
mouth words that even a baby

would blush to hear. The pulley shifted, O sweet baby,
and I tilted, head now aimed straight at the stage
and a cold breeze fanning cheeks not attached to my lips.
Into the theater walks a Romanesque Zeus, his clothing,
but a toga, a prop from another play. I am dumb, stuck
like a mute, wordless, beguilded. From the ground,

he looks up, chuckles and says, "Feet not touching the ground
when I walk by, huh? Happens all the time, babe."
His narcissistic words unpeeled my helpless, stuck
brain. I twisted and grabbed the rope, pulled the stage
crew's attention as they admired my amassed strength. Clothing
notwithstanding, I looked like a cougar with ruby lips.

A thick pad was produced and I stuck the landing as I grounded
myself center-stage. My lips curled upward. "Baby?"
I said to Mr. Aztec. Upstaging him and his clothes, I riposted, "Call me M'am."



Prompts for January 20, due January 26:

The story needs to take place somehow off the ground.
Include an Exposition in your story
Use the words: level, amass, dutch, and hallelujah
Someone needs to do something non-verbal with his or her mouth such as hiccup, cough, sneeze, your choice