Lullaby
By Kelle Groom
It was dark. Cold. I opened my eyes, and it was still dark. Wood at my sides. Softness in the crook of my left arm. My right hand touched a ceiling overhead.
Blanket at my shoulder. Inside black curls, inside a baby. A few days old. In my arms.
I breathed without breathing. The baby is asleep, I said. Lullaby, cradlesong. Lurch of the wagon. My head knocked against pine. Pushing, unbearable ache. The long lawn of bleeding. Watched over, washed, dressed. Four days later, the baby dies.
Lean on an elbow, lift my head. No room to sit. Bang until the screaming wakes me up again.
As usual, I’m in my twin bed with the flowered spread. Alive. Lukewarm Florida morning, still dim. My own bedroom at the halfway house on Summerlin. Donita has opened my door wide enough for her face, greenish-blond hair, washed eyes. Okay? She asks. Nod. Sorry. Dressed for Subway, in her plaid hat, plaid collar on a polo shirt.
Swim later? Yes, I say. Night desk clerk at the Roosevelt is one of her customers, lets us swim after work in their over chlorinated pool. My hair’s turning orange, ragged at the ends.
Last night, walking the pool edge, there was a white flash alongside me. Like a person, a really bright person. But it was only water. Donita eating potato chips in a plastic lounge chair. Paul said they’ve had gators here, Donita says. Small ones, lost. At least one six-footer. Pool guy finds them in the morning. When he rakes the leaves. The pool walls turquoise, underwater lights on. Keep an eye out, I say. Walk over the side, into the deep end. Sink to the bottom. How many things can I be afraid of at once? Let the chlorine bleach me clean.
I found the spine of something big in the woods, I say. We’re not supposed to go into the woods behind our house alone. It’s a transient state. I was just in for a minute, just listening. I wanted to hear the trees. Like Thoreau. I was reading a biography of Thoreau. I wanted to go away, build my own house. It had a giant red shoulder blade. No skin that I could recognize as skin.
About the Author
Kelle Groom is the author of How to Live: A Memoir in Essays (Tupelo Press), 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 four poetry collections, most recently Spill (Anhinga Press). An NEA Fellow in Prose, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Nonfiction, and recipient of two Florida Book Awards, Groom’s work has previously appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, New England Review, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Southeast Review as a finalist in the World's Best Short-Short Story Contest, and is forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review. “Lullaby” is from her fiction manuscript-in-progress, The Citronaut. Find her on X @KelleGroom, on Instagram @kellegroom or on Facebook @kellegroom.
