Kate Hammerich has been published in The Susquehanna Review, ditch, Third Wednesday, Barrier Island Review, Verandah Literary Journal, Grasslimb, Kill Poe t , MiPoesias, The Junk Lot Review and has self-published two books, escape artist and hallucinations, cancer & the purple tree . She mostly spends her time rolling on the floor with her daughter and her Husky. She is currently writing full-time and trying to get more involved in the poetry community.

Three Poems (May-ish, 2011. Issue 28.)

pelicans

I
you imagine the woman you love in your bed,
the creases and hollows of her skin ending and the blankets
beginning, imagine falling asleep to the rhythm of her life

II
you tell me to write a poem about it, as if I had the words,
as if I had not cut my tongue from my body

III
you imagine love on an airplane, a song you will write some day
with a girl you call Delilah because you were always Samson and
some day in the not-so-distant future
everyone will forget how

IV
you call to make me smile
as if a specific set of numbers had weight, as if
you knew I was comparing you to a pelican in flight and
the rush of their wings was our laughter saying, I love you,
I love you, goodbye

How to Live or Die

This medication may have severe side effects,
if you feel suicidal please call the local emergency services.

Yes, I want to die, I've wanted to die since I tried to suffocate myself with a pillow
at the age of nine, at twelve I drank nail polish remover and spent the afternoon
vomiting lemon-burning up my throat.

This medication tells me, Die now, it's time, but
it also says, You need to take the garbage out and
how long has the baby been napping

and did you want to write a poem about it, a hundred
poems about the fact that you want to die and cannot

hold the weight of the gun.

warriors

We slept like lovers,
exhausted on a mattress

one step up from the floor,
the cold slipping around the edges

of our cocoon; we slept
with one eye open,

greeting the dawn, the ice-tipped,
bladed grass, the light

freshening, the wolves
howling over the kill.