by Kelle Groom

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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I remember sleeping with the Ballad for Metka
Krasovec over my head for years in Florida, white
cover with people crowded together
and their ghosts above their black print selves,
pink too like shells, book small enough
to hold comfortably in a hand,
the ballad singing over my head all night
long, while I slept close to the floor, train
shaking as if trying to rouse me.
I remember shaking Tomaz Salamun’s
hand in St. Marks, I’d asked strangers
in the dark, where is St. Mark’s, laughing
because they’d been to St. Mark’s
or wanted to go but couldn’t,
or we asked strangers on the street
where is Tomaz Salamun
reading, and the strangers were poets
or lovers of poetry, and pointed us
toward St. Marks, their arms raised
like parentheses, like waves, but it was
almost over, and this was clear when we
arrived, and everyone stood in one of many
little circles, a large medieval door
shut. It was over. Dejected,
I climbed stairs to another floor,
down a hall, a restroom where I
stood in front of the glass examining
my face, my newly shorn
hair, and Teresa ran in, Hurry,
Hurry, she cried. Simen is holding
Tomaz Salamun hostage downstairs.
Simen said he can’t leave until
he meets you. She loves you, Simen said
to Tomaz Salamun, as if this would convince
him to stay until I ran out the bathroom door,
down the stairs, into the vast hall
to find Simen from Sweden
by way of Norway who doesn’t even like
people all that much, holding Tomaz
Salamun hostage for me because
I’d said I loved him. Like the cold
spark in a violet on a winter sill,
alive and unexpected. I remember
my hand in Tomaz Salamun’s, like a hand but
also like bread rising around
my hand, warm, tremendously
comforting, Who are you,
he asked, who are you?

______________________________________________________________________

Kelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections, Underwater City, Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill; a memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, a B&N Discover selection and New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice; and How to Live: A Memoir-in-Essays (Tupelo Press, October 2023). An NEA Fellow, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow, and winner of two Florida Book Awards, Groom’s work also appears in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry. She is currently director of communications and foundation relations at Atlantic Center for the Arts, an international artists-in-residence facility in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

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NB: Click on the title to open a page which contains an audio version of today’s poem.

by Kelle Groom

for Mike Murray

I can’t understand the sound barrier.

Ray and I are required to be miles out to sea,

but we don’t have a boat.

It was just mind roar when you were falling.

I have the harpsichord king’s song

déjà vu feeling now. On the pier you can regard us

as one song sung to your body—an angel with four

thousand wings helped, parted you

like a crowd, like the crown of your red

hair.  I needed a sound truck with amps.

After Ray poured you into the air, your bones

made a bright cloud over the ocean, then sank,

and you were a river for a while.

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Kelle Groom’s four poetry collections include Spill, Five Kingdoms, Luckily (Anhinga Press), and Underwater City (University Press of Florida). Her memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster), is a B&N Discover pick and NYTBR Editor's Choice. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry. She teaches in the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe.

by Kelle Groom

I remember sleeping with the Ballad for Metka

Krasovec over my head for years in Florida, white

cover with people crowded together

and their ghosts above their black print selves,

pink too like shells, book small enough

to hold comfortably in a hand,

the ballad singing over my head all night

long, while I slept close to the floor, train

shaking as if trying to rouse me.

I remember shaking Tomaz Salamun’s

hand in St. Marks, I’d asked strangers

in the dark, where is St. Mark’s, laughing

because they’d been to St. Mark’s

or wanted to go but couldn’t,

or we asked strangers on the street

where is Tomaz Salamun

reading, and the strangers were poets

or lovers of poetry, and pointed us

toward St. Marks, their arms raised

like parentheses, like waves, but it was

almost over, and this was clear when we

arrived, and everyone stood in one of many

little circles, a large medieval door

shut. It was over. Dejected,

I climbed stairs to another floor,

down a hall, a restroom where I

stood in front of the glass examining

my face, my newly shorn

hair, and Teresa ran in, Hurry,

Hurry, she cried. Simen is holding

Tomaz Salamun hostage downstairs.

Simen said he can’t leave until

he meets you. She loves you, Simen said

to Tomaz Salamun, as if this would convince

him to stay until I ran out the bathroom door,

down the stairs, into the vast hall

to find Simen from Sweden

by way of Norway who doesn’t even like

people all that much, holding Tomaz

Salamun hostage for me because

I’d said I loved him. Like the cold

spark in a violet on a winter sill,

alive and unexpected. I remember

my hand in Tomaz Salamun’s, like a hand but

also like bread rising around

my hand, warm, tremendously

comforting, Who are you,

he asked, who are you?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Kelle Groom’s four poetry collections include Spill, Five Kingdoms, Luckily (Anhinga Press), and Underwater City (University Press of Florida). Her memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster), is a B&N Discover pick and NYTBR Editor's Choice. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry. She teaches in the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe.