<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Between 7 & 9 am I did both cocaine & heroin,\nwalked naked in front of you.\nYears before while we drove to the airport,\nI saw your hologram, a time lapse to my\nright, like a baby being born along a road\nor the progression from ape to human,\nbent backs straightening.\nBut it was all you, all the same face\nlined up like Necco wafers in my mind.\nI still had an idea of you, just a few\nspheres in, but knew when I reached \nthe end, it would be easy. \nNo reason to hide, all walls dissolved.\nA man said he missed abandon.\nThe coke barely made me high, maybe\nit hadn\u2019t kicked in, so maybe it didn\u2019t \ncount that I\u2019d leaned over without \na thought a care, maybe I was still sober, \nmaybe I didn\u2019t need to tell anyone, 33 years\nis a long time, I don\u2019t remember wanting\nit wanting to let go give up give myself up.\nWhen I woke I was so grateful it wasn\u2019t\nreal, I didn\u2019t tell anyone. Walked \nto the church in the November cold\ndark, tripped on a chair, hit my head \non a cabinet. No one cared. That wouldn\u2019t\nhave been pretty<\/i> I said, righting myself.\nAsked Hillary if Top Mast had a pool, \nshe thinks Willies has salt water\u2013keeps\ncalling it the Norsemen\u2013old name <\/i>\nshe says. Unrestrained & pitiless\nthey can hear the grass grow. \n\n\n<\/pre>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\n <\/p>\nThe Woven Child<\/h4>\n
Louise Bourgeois, 2002, fabric, wood, glass, and steel<\/i>\n \nShe\u2019s headless,\nthe mother all torso\nbaby veiled in a dark blue\nwomb below her breasts\nresting like a book.\nHer sewn-on nipples\nlook like mine light\nbuttons. I\u2019d flown\nthrough air outside a glass\nchurch, tripped on the vastly\nuneven sidewalk, landed\non one knee, palms bleeding,\njeans absorb more blood.\nUsed a railing like a rope\nto pull myself into the Worcester\nArt Museum where a girl\nrecoiled from my bloody hands,\ngave me several bandaids.\nCaught my breath on\ncushioned benches, knee\nswelling, arm sprained,\nThe Woven Child in a glass\nbox. I sat beside him or her,\nthe mother, their constant\nrest. The interior is a portrait too.\nA burial in light.\nThe underworld used to be\nearth until it was mythical.\nSpecial Problems include the white of ice\nturning blue. Papers strewn balloon.\nShoes more like slip-ons, then tight at the ankle.\nSomeone waiting in 1971.\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\nKelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections: Spill, Five Kingdoms, Luckily<\/i> (Anhinga Press), and Underwater City <\/i>(University Press of Florida). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares,<\/i> and Poetry<\/i>. Groom\u2019s memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl <\/i>(Simon & Schuster), was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and New York Times Book Review<\/i> \u201cEditors\u2019 Choice.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abandon |The Woven Child<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}