Christine E Hamm

O the domesticity of these windows

The title of this poem comes from Sylvia Plath’s “The Munich Mannequins”

nailed shut under years of yellow
paint. Dragonflies burst from the pear tree 

above us, glints of orange and green.
Someone is supposed to be playing a violin. 

Bed sheets drift by in the wind.
The moon disappears and clouds smudge 

the sky green.  Despite everything,
I am awake. Yellow peppers, mint, kale. 

The cowbird looks like a blackbird
with a bleached top: black body, brown headed.                                               

Mismatched parts. Nothing grows
                                                as planned.

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Christine E Hamm (she/her), queer & disabled English Professor, social worker and student of ecopoetics, has a PhD in English and lives in New Jersey.  She recently won the Tenth Gate Prize from Word Works for her manuscript, Gorilla.  She has had work featured in North American Review, Nat Brut, Painted Bride Quarterly and many others. She has published six chapbooks and several books—hybrid texts as well as poetry.