Kelle Groom

The leasing agent told him it was gay Melrose,
but most of the neighbors ignored him,
the way they ignored each other,
& me, & the boy in love, until he smashed
not only his girlfriend’s car, but every other car in front of her apartment,
a building’s worth, including the police car—broke every windshield—
she didn’t want to press charges—he was so upset—but the neighbors insisted;

& the pretty girl who put a coffee table of magazines in the hallway as if
inviting you to read an article while you rang her doorbell or walked up
the stairs to your own apartment—she played awfully empty music
               loud with her windows open,
smiling to that emptiness;
the fighting hallway girl scream-
ing, You’re going to get me evicted;
& then she was gone; the family, then, just
the wife & baby, both so young, the hallway
smelling of purple bubble gum—white clogs
in the hall outside her door (bad feng shui), a tiny heart carved
out of each heel—her terrible screaming, his
terrible crying, the baby’s, & I never offered to sit; the English

girl in the laundry room who when I
complained about the trek down, said Yes,
but it’s nice to have so many washers—& do
all yr wash at once. maybe
that’s her secret being happy
—finding something marvelous in
all your clothes tumbling at once—her husband
smiling the last time I opened the red door & saw
him paying the pizza man—I wondered at his friendliness,
what good news had opened him, & then
the movers came & now I pass their empty
apartment, all the windows open, window to
window, people have lived here & gone for 50
years, the moon a radium moon with three questions
almost: What shines like that? As if it were living?
Speaking in a silver tongue?

Janean brought her DVD player to school to show her ESL
students, “It’s a Beautiful Life”—her favorite part when
Clarence says, “And you were going to kill yourself over

money?” Like Emma Bovary killing herself for three
thousand dollars, buying all those clothes, fear of the lender
coming to the house, taking all her pretty things,

her husband’s surprised face—the threat of dismay. And
after her death, her husband went gray, like old furniture
under a sheet, her child alone in a house so empty it

seemed trees drifted through. It was a wave she got stuck
on the crest of. When I was there, Laurel said stay, and she
fried soy chicken fingers. I sat in her brown living room

with the candle on the coffee table, and her love for her
sweet dog, and ate a plate of fake chicken, and by the time
I was done, I was back in the world.

Nan Goldin said, “I used to think I couldn’t lose anyone
if I photographed them enough.” I thought it was happiness

that kept people alive, the cheer in Kenneth Koch’s face,
Santa Claus curls, the way I used to think that once you were

loved, everything would be solved, even the bucked teeth
of a woman who shopped at the health food store with her man.

Every week I waited on them, standing close, but her smile
stayed thick as Chiclets, unstraightened by love—story

of my life. In the Shish Kebob Café, I’m the only diner,
& the waitress has seated me in front of the TV showing

a black & white Lebanese movie from the 1960s that I’m able
to follow somewhat even though it’s in Arabic.

A woman with painfully expressive eyes is dancing at an outdoor
club with a man who sings with his eyes closed.

Afterwards, he gives her a ride in a roadster, & when it breaks
down, he honks the horn until a turbaned man with a lantern

comes out of the darkness to guide the couple to his home,
the woman wincing at fireworks, the singer’s finger

under her chin. The waitress sits down at the table
next to me, tells me the singer is famous—that’s why

when he jets off, women line the tarmac waving scarves.
After the lantern night, the wincing woman is pregnant;

she’s wearing her aunt’s wedding ring as protection.
The singer doesn’t seem to know about this,

but when the boy is four years old, he’s hit by a car,
requires a transfusion, & only the singer’s blood

is an appropriate match, the boy passed out in the hospital,
his head bandage like a nun’s wimple, the singer laid out

on a similar bed, his blood bringing the boy around,
everyone kissing. I tried to leave before the movie was over,

but the waitress said, “Why?” & brought me another plate,
said, “Try my tabouli.” She reminded me of high school

friends, the ease of hanging out on the lawn, grass blades
so thick they seemed almost like leaves, deep green & cool.

The waitress had no social awkwardness, had married
at fifteen, her husband eleven years older, & you could tell

she felt young, swinging her hair. When the waitress asks
her husband, the cook, to translate the name of the movie,

he says, “Story of My Life,” you know, a love story.
 

Poems © Kelle Groom 2004-2005. All rights reserved.