Atlanta, 1936 - Zone 3

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black and white overlays of feminine faces

Volume 40, Issue 1
Volume 40, Issue 1

Atlanta, 1936

By Kelle Groom

Carole Lombard has a black eye
in Love Before Breakfast on a billboard
the width of a house in Atlanta,
on the fence below, her wispy blond hair
flips in the wind, eye charcoaled
round and round, though nothing really happens
at breakfast, the fight and paddy wagon
are at night, and there’s not much love
either, more obsession and stalking but maybe
that is supposed to be love,
and what do I know, when I fell in love
I was overtaken like the cloud
that erases Jean Tinguely’s face
in front of the Trocadéro in October 1959,
just a giant poof of opacity,
and who can think straight in that state,
but what about the people in the house
above the movie poster, a twin to the one
beside with a wide oval-eyed porch
beaded strands like eyelashes securing it
to the roof, bedroom curtains missing,
a chunk of lintel torn off above
Capitol Theatre’s 8 BIG ACTS VODVIL,
I wonder if the residents see a lot
of shows with all this advertising,
if they’ve fallen in love before
breakfast and after, found a way
to see each other, I hope so
I mean it’s been 89 years,
there’s not much time left.

About Kelle Groom

Kelle Groom’s fifth poetry collection, Book of Miracles, will be published in the Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Press, Spring 2027. Her previous poetry collections include Underwater City (University Press of Florida), Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill (Anhinga Press). She is also the author of 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 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.

black and white overlays of feminine faces

Volume 40, Issue 1
Volume 40, Issue 1

Atlanta, 1936

By Kelle Groom

Carole Lombard has a black eye
in Love Before Breakfast on a billboard
the width of a house in Atlanta,
on the fence below, her wispy blond hair
flips in the wind, eye charcoaled
round and round, though nothing really happens
at breakfast, the fight and paddy wagon
are at night, and there’s not much love
either, more obsession and stalking but maybe
that is supposed to be love,
and what do I know, when I fell in love
I was overtaken like the cloud
that erases Jean Tinguely’s face
in front of the Trocadéro in October 1959,
just a giant poof of opacity,
and who can think straight in that state,
but what about the people in the house
above the movie poster, a twin to the one
beside with a wide oval-eyed porch
beaded strands like eyelashes securing it
to the roof, bedroom curtains missing,
a chunk of lintel torn off above
Capitol Theatre’s 8 BIG ACTS VODVIL,
I wonder if the residents see a lot
of shows with all this advertising,
if they’ve fallen in love before
breakfast and after, found a way
to see each other, I hope so
I mean it’s been 89 years,
there’s not much time left.

Volume 40, Issue 1
Volume 40, Issue 1

Atlanta, 1936

By Kelle Groom

Carole Lombard has a black eye
in Love Before Breakfast on a billboard
the width of a house in Atlanta,
on the fence below, her wispy blond hair
flips in the wind, eye charcoaled
round and round, though nothing really happens
at breakfast, the fight and paddy wagon
are at night, and there’s not much love
either, more obsession and stalking but maybe
that is supposed to be love,
and what do I know, when I fell in love
I was overtaken like the cloud
that erases Jean Tinguely’s face
in front of the Trocadéro in October 1959,
just a giant poof of opacity,
and who can think straight in that state,
but what about the people in the house
above the movie poster, a twin to the one
beside with a wide oval-eyed porch
beaded strands like eyelashes securing it
to the roof, bedroom curtains missing,
a chunk of lintel torn off above
Capitol Theatre’s 8 BIG ACTS VODVIL,
I wonder if the residents see a lot
of shows with all this advertising,
if they’ve fallen in love before
breakfast and after, found a way
to see each other, I hope so
I mean it’s been 89 years,
there’s not much time left.

About Kelle Groom

Kelle Groom’s fifth poetry collection, Book of Miracles, will be published in the Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Press, Spring 2027. Her previous poetry collections include Underwater City (University Press of Florida), Luckily, Five Kingdoms, and Spill (Anhinga Press). She is also the author of 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 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.