Christine Hamm's Blog
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Feb.26.2012
Only You Can
You’re in the form of a redwood hunched and weeping in the corner. You forgot your lunch pail and none of the other trees will share with you. “Isn’t this a great sunny day?” I whisper to you. You sniff wetly, but I’m hoping you’ll still discuss the weather with me – redwoods are great...
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Feb.13.2012
Subdivision
Under the mattress
in the guestroom, I couldn’t find the word
for “enough”. The word for
“born animal”.
The what kind, the what kind. Police whispering, entering
the kitchen, slipping out my bedroom
window.
The crackle of deer picking through bottles in...
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Feb.01.2012
Self Portrait with Pen
Let me try to explain. Horses struggling knee deep in mud, then up-beat, simple music, like a distant ice-cream truck. The sound of something hard and metal hitting something soft and wood, like a plow ramming a fence, or a Datsun hitting a forest of popsicle sticks.
A...
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Jan.21.2012
Empire of Ghosts
I keep you all in a mason jar with some cotton, a maple stick or two, some pine needles; no need to poke air holes in the lid.
All the cats, tails bobbing like lovesick meat hooks -- all the horses, whickering Neil Diamond melodies.
No touching, just manipulation with...
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Jul.11.2011
Canyon View with Ghost
Someone keeps asking if this is what nature smells like. The clouds fluff and flatten as the plaque at our feet etceteras: this absence of earth preens like a 1950's disaster movie, but with really cool special effects. When your ex-nurse calls again, I pretend to lose my...
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Jul.05.2011
Death Poem with Federally Funded Holiday
Butterfly wings sewn to the buttons on your sweater. The barbeque smoke comes between me and the trees. Here, people are ready for their meat.
Who has time for kisses? Why do I always picture you in a golden canoe, watching your hands, making no...
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Jun.16.2011
How to Make it as a Vegas Showgirl
Get used to stares: watch us as you sketch a Christmas tree on fire, then a pillow and a photo of the ocean. Draw tiny dark flowers
all over your arms and belly with blood and ink. Don't meet the eyes of your lovers, your parole officer. See yourself as the...
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May.19.2011
Gopher
The animal sighs as she crushes it in her fist: she thought it would struggle more. Taste of mint, cardboard, nothing. She can’t feel anything but tingling. The tree branches tear her dress as she climbs. She rips the hem to make a bandage. The nerves in her fingers degrading, breaking...
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Apr.23.2011
Gorilla Girlfor Frances Murphy
I'm not going to end with the punchline, "and the gorilla girl is a man" because it's more complicated than that, I know you know that. Like many girls, she was born into a body she didn't recognize. One that grew hair across her mouth, one that grew large...
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Apr.14.2011
Used to Live, II
the smear I drew with off-pink lipstickon the flocked wallpaperthe torn underside of the mattressthe odd-smelling crease where the dresserand floor meet, left side
my brother in the backseat,staring out the window at nothingthe bed of a yellow pick-up truck, night time
tucking...
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Apr.12.2011
Inside the White Palace
Tonight, nothingtastes right. You are trying to save the tiger again, this time
she's in the shape of a girl huddled at the head of a hospitalbed, fighting off
the hospice nurses, their kind needles, with a glare and a wave. Transparent guidebooks stabbed directly under...
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Apr.06.2011
Bride of the Gorillafor Barbara Payton
She was a bad blond: she understood the couch, its tender springs, the secrets beneath its cushions, what the padded armrests felt like pushing back her breasts. What applying for a position meant. In this scene, watch for the glowing cardboard meteor in the...
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About Christine
Christine Hamm is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University. She won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake...
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