Kelle Groom
L'amoureuse

           She has the colour of my eye,

           She has the body of my hand

                  -- Paul Eluard, trans. Samuel Beckett


She has the Kansas City of my open window

She has the halogen of my bent blinds

And her hair is in my hair
She has the fresh breeze of my borrowed flower sheets

She has the freestyle of my squeaky metal bed coils

She has the sonic boom of another’s blood beneath me

She has Any way you want it that’s the way you need it outside her                           window in the summer dark

And her hair is in my hair
She has the breaking point of my hard plastic pink flipflops

She has the hypnosis of my shuffle to the kitchen to make coffee

She has the conversation of my black caterpillars in their fur coats, curling uncurling by the door   

            last winter, hello, hello.

She has the song and dance of my rage turned against the self

And her hair is in my hair

She has the touch and go of my fear of death by emotional starvation

She has Bachman Turner Overdrive playing Takin’ care of business                        outside her window

& a man who says: We’re gonna mix it up we’re gonna find a sixth person we’re gonna get trashed

And her hair is in my hair

She has the Santa Ana of my sense of basic flaw and unlovabilty

She has the atavism of my narcotism

And her hair is in my hair

She has the jet lag of my pocketbook

She has the sonogram of my happiest childhood memories

She has the frailty of my recollection

She has the ultra-red ultra-violet ultra-sonic ultra-short ultra-mundane ultra-montane ululating 

            ultimatum of my solitude

And her hair is in my hair

She has the totter of my Plymouth Rock

She has the touch of my waffle iron

She has the undersong of my sufficiency

She has the pockmark of my housecleaning

And her hair is in my hair

She has the howl of my duplicate

The soot of my headwork

The welt of my bra

The hatchback of my stupor

The suitcase of my figments

The breath of my parolee

The proof of my throttle

And her hair is in my hair

Found In Volume 45, No. 03
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Kelle Groom
About the Author

Kelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections, Spill, Five Kingdoms, and Luckily (Anhinga Press), and Underwater City (University Press of Florida). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Her memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster) was a Barnes & Noble Discover selection and New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. She is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe and director of education programs at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. “When Wendy Asked What We Dream” is from her poetry manuscript, Far Land.