CHRISTINE E. HAMM | SELF-PORTRAIT AS AMBIEN

SELF-PORTRAIT AS AMBIEN

It was you who

buttoned, unbuttoned, my tongue-

colored blouse. You who showed

me how to fall in the most dramatic

way, how to fake my own death. You

whose bare feet brushed the tops

of telephone poles.

Afterwards, on the twin mattress

in your mother’s sewing room,

you made me close

my eyes and guess what your hands

were doing. Now, the medics

appear, and phlebotomists

paw through our pockets, our pink

plastic purses. Tentative, mucky,

very wet, very red, their

fingers clutch our braids as they whisper

numbers, strap us in. That word

you love to slip inside

yourself, how it shapes your mouth.

Their needles cannot pierce our

skin. On the ceiling of the

ambulance, a red clock. We ask for

water; they ask us why we are thirsty.

Christine E. Hamm, queer and disabled English professor, social worker, and student of ecopoetics, has a Ph.D. in English and lives in New Jersey. She recently won the Tenth Gate Prize from Word Works for her manuscript, Gorilla. Her work has appeared in North American Review, Nat Brut, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has published six chapbooks and several books—hybrid texts as well as poetry.