Back Stroke by Christine Hamm

In a pink stadium-
sized hall filled

with vomiting
children, I learned

to breathe.

Never
allowing pool
water

above the crown
of my head.

There in the milky
shallows, I floated

in the arms
of someone

else’s mother.

# # #
Christine Hamm has a PhD in American Poetics, and is an editor for Ping*Pong Free Press. She is currently an MFA poetry student at Columbia University. She has three books out; the latest, Echo Park, was published by Blazevox. The New Orleans Review published Christine’s chapbook, A is for Afterimage, and nominated her work for a Pushcart in 2014, and in 2017, Ghostbird Press is publishing an excerpt from her ongoing manuscript, Notes on Wolves and Ruin. Read more here: http://christinehamm.com

Photo yu tang