Christine Hamm
Waterbabies
As we empty bottles
of Nyquil together to fall
out of this world of smoke
and bruises, the music of the spheres
plays in your backyard pool.
We sit holding hands under the burning
pastel surface, watching the cuts
on our arms turn the water orange.
You want to take what is owed you
out of my flesh with your childproof
scissors. Then you try them on my hair,
and I can’t blame you. Life lines erased
by too much chlorine. Poolside, piles
of silk slips and safety glass are pillows:
woken by the stinking tongue of your dog,
his heart stitched to our slow celebration.
Christine Hamm is the author of Echo Park (Blazevox, 2011) and A is for Absence (New Orleans Review, 2014), among other collections. Her poems have appeared in Orbis, Nat Brut, BODY, Poetry Midwest, Rattle, Dark Sky, and many others. Holding a doctorate in American Poetics, Christine is an editor for Ping*Pong Press and teaches English at Pace University in New York City.