Jenny Krueger
I was born in a beige hospital
in a room with off-white walls and taupe trim
that took the light of fluorescent bulbs
and lobbed it back again as almond meal.
I was raised in a compost bin
with banana-peel hair and black fingernails.
I turned over and over again
in soil the color of ink.
I am turning again today.
The real me grew from tangerines and greens
and learned to swim when the ground turned blue.
When I became a mother,
he was the deepest shade of you,
and even the color of night was lit
like jellyfish swelling in schools.
What I would give for us to stay here—
treading and not knowing,
in a lazy swim toward a horizon
that is the grayest shade of white.
Jenny Krueger is a freelance writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her poetry has appeared in Revolver, The Evening Street Review, and Thin Air Magazine, among others. She studies at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. She lives with her husband and their young son.