Then you said, I'm not really your mother. How, when you took off your shirt, I saw your black-winged bra cupping your freckled breasts. The Wednesday when you told me you couldn't answer my call last night because you had someone's cock in your mouth. The script you wrote for me for valium, so you could get some yourself. The part where you kept your fingers under your eyes to stop the mascara from running. How your hair got in my mouth on the ferris wheel. How you were supposed to engaged, but the obituary said single. The part where you were a pole dancer. The part where you fucked the hospital janitor. The pink lampshade with the feather trim. Your son's pencil drawings of rats on your refrigerator. How you cried every time in the same monotone when your boyfriends broke up with you. The matching bitchy cats under your sofa, your sink. The poster of a pastel garden just above your toilet that appeared to be painted by an extremely depressed grandmother. The part where your pregnant patient hung herself. How you counted to three in a voice as sweet as any hypnotist to get your son to put his video games away. How he has your enormous bronze eyes, the eyes of a busy victim. The sickly yellow light above your stove, how it made us all look bloodless, dying. How we looked in that polaroid from the party, curled up on the black velvet sofa, the white of your big teeth matching the backs of my hands. The dislocated, sudden shadows a flash makes. How in all my dreams of you, you are wearing a yellow flowered scarf around your head, although you never wore a scarf. How you swoop slowly down from turbulent clouds as if you are riding a floating dinner plate. What you really said to me. How you made me my first martini, and I was disappointed. The part where you came on to my psychiatrist and he turned you down. How your insides ached afterwards, as if you'd been hit with a shovel in the stomach. How I tried to pretend to sympathize. The drugs we shared on that couch. The kiss we nearly shared on that couch. How you said you were worried about the stereo speakers, Is sound coming out, or going in? Are we being recorded? How I told you to close your eyes and it would soon get better. How you wanted to ride the bumper cars three times in a row. How you hit my car so hard my elbow dislocated. How it didn't, eventually, get better; none of it.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Then you said, I'm not really your mother. How, when you took off your shirt, I saw your black-winged bra cupping your freckled breasts. The Wednesday when you told me you couldn't answer my call last night because you had someone's cock in your mouth. The script you wrote for me for valium, so you could get some yourself. The part where you kept your fingers under your eyes to stop the mascara from running. How your hair got in my mouth on the ferris wheel. How you were supposed to engaged, but the obituary said single. The part where you were a pole dancer. The part where you fucked the hospital janitor. The pink lampshade with the feather trim. Your son's pencil drawings of rats on your refrigerator. How you cried every time in the same monotone when your boyfriends broke up with you. The matching bitchy cats under your sofa, your sink. The poster of a pastel garden just above your toilet that appeared to be painted by an extremely depressed grandmother. The part where your pregnant patient hung herself. How you counted to three in a voice as sweet as any hypnotist to get your son to put his video games away. How he has your enormous bronze eyes, the eyes of a busy victim. The sickly yellow light above your stove, how it made us all look bloodless, dying. How we looked in that polaroid from the party, curled up on the black velvet sofa, the white of your big teeth matching the backs of my hands. The dislocated, sudden shadows a flash makes. How in all my dreams of you, you are wearing a yellow flowered scarf around your head, although you never wore a scarf. How you swoop slowly down from turbulent clouds as if you are riding a floating dinner plate. What you really said to me. How you made me my first martini, and I was disappointed. The part where you came on to my psychiatrist and he turned you down. How your insides ached afterwards, as if you'd been hit with a shovel in the stomach. How I tried to pretend to sympathize. The drugs we shared on that couch. The kiss we nearly shared on that couch. How you said you were worried about the stereo speakers, Is sound coming out, or going in? Are we being recorded? How I told you to close your eyes and it would soon get better. How you wanted to ride the bumper cars three times in a row. How you hit my car so hard my elbow dislocated. How it didn't, eventually, get better; none of it.

Saints & Cannibals, buy it here.
About Me

- Name: Christine
- Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States
CHRISTINE HAMM is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Drew University, where she was awarded a Caspersen Scholarship for Academic Promise. In 2007, she was a runner up to Queens' Poet Laureate. Her poetry has been published in The Adirondack Review, Pebble Lake Review, Horseless Press, Lodestar Quarterly, Blue Fifth Review, Poetry Midwest, MiPoesias, Rattle, Snow Monkey and Exquisite Corpse, among others. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and once for "The Best of the Web". Her work has been anthologized in Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader and The Murdering of Our Years: Artists and Activists on Making Ends Meet, both by Soft Skull Press. Her first book of poems, The Transparent Dinner, was published by Mayapple Press in October '06, and her second book, Saints & Cannibals was published by Plain View Press in Spring '10.
click here and I get bucks
Listen to my interview on NPR.
Listen to Me Read My Work.
Children Having Trouble with Meat

fairytales for cannibals
my chapbook from Dancing Girl Press
The Animal Husband
poems about animals and food

surreal, funny and dark
The Salt Daughter

A chapbook: strange and amusing tales of suburban families from lands where food and love are part of a constant, dark battleground. Get it here.
Buy my Kitschy Products!


A chapbook: strange and amusing tales of suburban families from lands where food and love are part of a constant, dark battleground. Get it here.
Buy my Kitschy Products!

THE TRANSPARENT DINNER
read the first book interview
My comix.
Links
I'm on the N line! nyc bloggers map
Where I've been Published
Articles:
An Iris Is an Iris: William Kentridge at the New Museum in NYMetropolis.
Contemporary Art -- weekly column March - October, 2001 at Suite101.com
Introduction to Barnes and Nobles re-issue of Clive Bell's book, Art, which sparked modernist art theory.
Poetry
Exquisite Corpse
Kitchen Sink
Rattle
MiPoesias
Loop #5
Watchword Press
Monday Night Lit
Foliate Oak Online
R.A.L.P.H.
Octavo
Burning Word
Pebble Lake Review
Plum Ruby Review
Whalelane
canwehaveourballback?
Shampoo
Toys in Babeland website
Eclectica
Sniffy Journal
Stirring
Small Spiral Notebook
3am Magazine
Soap Box Girls
Diagram
VeRT!
Bluff Quarterly
Cleansheets Magazine
Poetry Midwest
Where and When I've Read
Speakeasy, 9/01
Thesauraushead, 10/01
Women's Studio Center Opening, 12/01
Women's Studio Center Reading, 1/02
Sarah Lawrence Inter-collegiate Poetry Reading on April 3rd.
Thesauraushead Reading on April 5th.
Happy Ending
The Poetry Project
Galapagos
Atomic Cafe
Poetry vs. Comedy
Smut
GOOD BLOGS
Diane Lockward
Inky Circus
Mazie
Ellen Forney
Disgraced
Todd Swift
C. Hope Clark
Dottie Bones
Summer
Ovaries
Courtney
Maria Garcia Teutsch
Cami Park
Angela Simone
Expiring Poems
Cynthia Cruz
Elisa Gabbert
HTML Giant
Ping Pong
Joanna Penn Cooper
Fat Gold Watch Press
MORE BLOGS
AND YET MORE
Other Sites I like:
happy
milky elephant
castagraf
npr
brooklyn
polka dot art
scary art bodies
sex girls
strangles girls
fashion for girls
japanophile
cloe-wear
poets
Hole
craft
Jane Crow
Land Mammal!
Emily
Mickey Z.
Koh
Reader of D. Books...
Chicago-N
Cherilyn Ferroggiaro
Rebecca!
waitresspoems
Chicks and G.
The Dishwasher's Tears
Cheryl B.
Yolanda
James Lineberger
poetry garage
the flesh made word
navelorange
Jack
Surrender, Dorothy
Jenni
Saying it Right Out Loud
Netinous
21km Up The Valley
Quoi L'eternite
D. Menendez
Michael Schiavo
Lynn, the blondish one
Amy King
Dan Coffey
Sean Kilpatrick
Arlene Ang
Nichelle
Kristy B.
EYEBALL HATRED
Peggy
Joe McDude
Todd Colby
Kate Greenstreet
The WSC Blog
the ten thousandth sam
Sotho
Butch Stroll
Dick Jones
Danielle
Steve Schroeder
Red Morning Press
Chicky
Voodoo Chicken
Terry
Elise M.
Tim Green
Karin Gottshall
Nurse
Poetry Notebook
Sara Kearns
Otherwise
Ham and Cheese (not Hamm)
This site is a member
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visit Here.



2 Comments:
This is absolutely amazing. Very well done. A perfect portrait of that one person we can never quite properly describe no matter how hard we try.
-Barry Napier
www.barrynapierwriting.wordpress.com
I absolutely love your poetry.
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