you were sky blue cyan aquamarine
you were azure argentinian
you were alice baby and yonder
byzantine and carolina capri
powder embedded with trilobite
glitter nylon for slip
cerulean chelsea chlorine
cobalt cornflower
turquoise in a mirror of the girls’ bathroom
before first period of eighth grade in el paso
secretly bought at the military base px
oblong slab of ocean with a lozenge brush
forbidden I swept you over
my eyelids out of sight
of my parents swipe after swipe
my first months in the desert tumbleweeds
blew across the backyard that was
no yard no grass like giant hairdos
come loose and rolling nowhere
in the hottest city in texas
with an average
of 98 degrees my eyes
were delf dolphin Egyptian
indigo ice iris
pacific and neon robin’s egg
true I longed
to be older
for my blue eyeshadow wearing future
at the end of the school day soap
on a rough wet paper towel
stung my eyes
scrubs it all away.
Dear Blue Eyeshadow
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 collections include Spill, Five Kingdoms, Luckily (both Florida Book Award recipients) from Anhinga Press and Underwater City (University Press of Florida). Groom is also the author of a memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster) and How to Live: A Memoir in Essays (Tupelo Press). Her free monthly column on writing is “The Continuous Life”: kellegroom.substack.com.