Kelle Groom
Girl in a Window of the Alhambra
There is man who can only remember
Now just this moment
he can’t even remember
that he can’t remember.
I remember the same things
over and over as if
I am still there
sitting in an open window
of the Alhambra
in the shape of an upside-down
U surrounded by mosaics
wearing a button-down
mosaic blouse the moment
gone the photograph you.
I remember feeling for once
that my body belonged
to me that I fit inside
I was sixteen
and might have fallen
into the open air mountains
behind me the Sierra Nevadas
but am easy in the window seat
interlocking blouse and curly
hair haloed one shoulder lower
leaning forward to see you
smiling younger than me
now with your camera
your burst of light.
Repair
A frying pan almost fell on her head
She wore a round gown a muslin dress
She maintained the illusion of nudity
With a flesh stay waistlines up and down
A bum roll a pufferfish with an inflatable
Body There is a science to the braying
And the gut cavity a carpet on the seabed
A suction cup and glue It was monastic—
Gray and brown it was austere
There were also surcoats and tunics
Hose and pillbox pointy shoes
Her hair in the pudding-basin style
A back molar bloody and square like
Dice popped out of her mouth
And she worried all of her other
Bottom teeth would lean to the right
Spread out and what kind of smile
Would she have then?
The party continued
Tooth in her palm and she wondered
If this was life now—things
Falling adjusting When she asked
The repair man he said how the fuck
Should I know? The songs were loud
A gray whale returned after three-hundred
Years a wall of ice melted and there
She is finless solo swimming
In an ocean she’s never seen before
Kelle Groom has received two Florida Book Awards for poetry. Her fifth poetry collection, Book of Miracles, is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press (March 2027). Her earlier poetry collections are Underwater City (U Press of FL), Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill (Anhinga Press). website