Prayer
By Kelle Groom
The square of beveled glass at the top of my front door has four half-octagons like tiny serving dishes that hold the slivers of sky visible below the porch lintel Each refraction blue- green most days here in Florida and even though I know the green is trees sky blue I always think stained glass my stained glass sky and that is where I pray each day and ask for help for all who suffer for all I’m surprised I don’t want a wider view but just today I thought oh it is a church I can’t see from here the bougainvillea evening primrose red tasselflower bottlebrush my door itself is covered in gray wood moths which look more like wood than wood itself though the jagged splinters with swollen bellies may only be home dozens stuck to my door with super glue that withstands rain wind a flying thing inside.
Kelle Groom is the author of four poetry collections, Underwater City, Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill, as well as a memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, a B&N Discover selection and NYTBR Editor's Choice, and How to Live: A Memoir in Essays. An NEA Fellow and recipient of two Florida Book Awards in poetry, Groom’s work appears in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry.
09/11 / Poetry Reading and Conversation, a collaboration with Matwaala, with visiting poet-in-residence Nina Sudhakar & local poet Carolene Kurien / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live (rsvp here) and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
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I love this poem. Love.
Beautiful poem for your return.
How lucky those of us are to have seen the natural world through Grandma's beveled glass door. And rainbows, the extra dab of magic. Thank you, dear SWIMM