Kelle Groom
Blackberries
I held you,
once,
my womb still
a swollen cloud of blood,
you were wrapped in white,
even your hands
bound,
as if your fingernails
were glass.
Eyes still unopened
to the world not my body,
unhurried,
without hunger
you licked the nipple
as if tasting
a berry
for the first time.
A thousand miles north
clouds of blackberries
will bruise beneath your skin,
needles will sink
to the softness
in your bones,
find the marrow
bad I made you with.
We’ll hear whirring,
like the voice of air
on a cliff,
our bones scattered
at the grave's mouth, as
when one cutteth and cleaveth
wood upon the earth.
I unwrap your cotton fist,
find, small,
my own long wrist
and fingers, palm.
It’s early yet,
my voice
is let
to mother you.
once,
my womb still
a swollen cloud of blood,
you were wrapped in white,
even your hands
bound,
as if your fingernails
were glass.
Eyes still unopened
to the world not my body,
unhurried,
without hunger
you licked the nipple
as if tasting
a berry
for the first time.
A thousand miles north
clouds of blackberries
will bruise beneath your skin,
needles will sink
to the softness
in your bones,
find the marrow
bad I made you with.
We’ll hear whirring,
like the voice of air
on a cliff,
our bones scattered
at the grave's mouth, as
when one cutteth and cleaveth
wood upon the earth.
I unwrap your cotton fist,
find, small,
my own long wrist
and fingers, palm.
It’s early yet,
my voice
is let
to mother you.
--
Kelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections, Underwater City (University Press of Florida), Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill (Anhinga Press); a memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster), a Barnes & Noble Discover selection and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice; and most recently, How to Live: A Memoir in Essays (Tupelo Press). An NEA Fellow, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow, and recipient of two Florida Book Awards in poetry, Groom’s work has appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry.
Kelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections, Underwater City (University Press of Florida), Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill (Anhinga Press); a memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster), a Barnes & Noble Discover selection and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice; and most recently, How to Live: A Memoir in Essays (Tupelo Press). An NEA Fellow, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow, and recipient of two Florida Book Awards in poetry, Groom’s work has appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry.