Chera Hammons

Close up of woman in white shirt holding mirror that reflects sky and has text reading "She maps her own disaster with silence."

"She maps her own disaster with silence."

These are lines from the poem "How to Write About It," which first appeared in the Red Sky anthology, and is included in my 2017 book The Traveler's Guide to Bomb City.

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Thank you, Matthew! Hope you're doing as well as can be!

Tonight: taught Hester Pulter on motherhood and flowers, early modern representations of cactus, and two beautiful poems by @chera-writes.bsky.social

Tiny light gray butterfly with slight orange and black markings on closed wings, two small black and white tails trailing from wings

Tiny butterfly with wings opened to reveal deep charcoal gray inner wing with distinct orange "eyes" at base and white fringe at edges

Gray hairstreak butterfly. So small and intricate. All dressed up. I like to think of the moment a butterfly opens its wings as "the big reveal."

Caption text over photograph looking up at trees and red cliffs overhead, blue sky with clouds in background

"A scar is not the only way to prove there was a wound."

These are lines from the poem "Salvage List," title poem of my new book Salvage List, now available through Belle Point Press.

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#salvagelist

Caption text over photograph of bird flying with wings spread down concrete wall with its shadow stark behind it

These are lines from the poem "Red Mare," in my new book Salvage List, available through Belle Point Press.

"There is no courage unless fear comes first.
This blistering brilliance means nothing at all,
except that we are alive."

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Caption text over photograph of white flower in focus against blurring background with sunrise and rays of light

"Every day contains something from before that carries over with us,
and something else always just about to begin."

These are lines from "Sparrows," which first appeared at Rattle.com and is in my poetry collection The Traveler's Guide to Bomb City.

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Caption text over photograph of green field featuring single tree covered in light pink blossoms. There are green mountains and a green treeline in the background.

"I'm ashamed to admit that even having known plenty,
I still don't know what enough is,
only what it isn't."

The full poem "Upon Reading that Fruit Flies Age Faster Once They Have Seen Death" appears in Rattle.com & in Birds of America (The Dial Press, avail. 2026).

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#birdsofamericabook

Me too! The brain is so endlessly fascinating. <3

Caption text over photograph of dark evergreen trees against cloudless gray sky

"What we must learn here is not our loneliness."

This is a line from my poem "Amnesties," which opens my 2020 collection Maps of Injury, available through Sundress Publications.

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That's so cool! I wonder how our brains come up with what colors to assign. Sometimes I can guess why, sometimes it seems so random!

Took a break from writing (and doomscrolling) yesterday to watch Flash's mane blow in the wind. It helped.

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#minihorse
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Lab-kept bumble bees roll small wooden balls around for no apparent purpose other than fun, a 2022 study reveals.

Learn more on #WorldBeeDay: scim.ag/4dAwCuD

When you read, do you experience colors?

This week's post at The Hurt and the Miracle is a look at grapheme-color synesthesia. cherahammons.substack.com/p/reading-po...

Caption text over photo in which a bird flies away from a tree that is covered in nests, which will soon be hidden by the growing green leaves

Lines from the poem "Falconry," which is from my 2017 collection The Traveler's Guide to Bomb City.

"The tree speaks of its burdens in the winter,
but tries to keep secrets now."

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This is high art

Caption text over photograph of yellow hay field under dark storm clouds

Lines from "Tornado Alley," first published in Rattle.

"The storm will pass soon, the worst ones wear themselves out fast with their violence,
and the morning will sparkle with dew and bent metal.
The roots of the trees holding the sky like something they'd hoped for."

Rebellions are built on hope.

Two antelope stand facing each other in field, a Love's gas station sign in the distance behind them.

Throwback to when pronghorns lived down the street from me. Now there's a neighborhood of giant, bland houses there. I greatly preferred the antelope.

The Hours We Save I want to lose track of time. I want the honesty of night falling when it falls.

New newsletter out today! Featuring my poem "Daylight Saving."

cherahammons.substack.com/p/the-hours-...

The Fall of Rome The city’s women knew too well that when the seasons changed, a house must change, too. In the last days of the democracy they walked barefoot through the rooms, shaking the dust out of the sun-faded curtains, watching for the scorpions which sometimes crept along the walls in autumn’s early chill. They swept, as was their habit. They polished. They put heavier quilts upon the beds. They watered the houseplants which were not yet dormant, aware that even the hardy pothos would not long outlive any woman who had stood in the stead of rain. That spring, when the newly unfurled leaves had draped tender and neon on stems that reached from the dark green center mass, that sudden color had been so vivid that it hurt something vital they thought they had lost, so that they felt the loss of it again. A final flare of sunset. The blue jay feathers they’d gathered as girls, which must have wound up in boxes in attics, going to dust and mites. Those feathers had been almost fluorescent against the brown winter grass. They had long known that safety was the same as that bright blue: just a trick of the light. Some lies, so perfect, so precise, you’d do almost anything to forgive them.

I need to be spending more time here! I'll try to do better. This is my poem "The Fall of Rome," which was first published by Diode and will be included in the book Salvage List, forthcoming this summer from Belle Point Press.

Text reading, "Tell me what sort of world this is. So often I ask, 'What could this mean?' and hope the answer is something remarkable," over photograph of cottontail rabbit in wildflowers.

These are lines from my poem "When the Cottontail Doesn't Return," first published by The Southern Review.
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