SWWIM sustains and celebrates women poets by connecting creatives across generations and by curating a living archive of contemporary poetry, while solidifying Miami as a nexus for the literary arts.
Wait for a flood warning that comes 10 minutes before you’re meant to leave for rehearsal, or the supermarket. Instead of leaving, stay. Take your shoes off. Stand outside next to a tree or a flagpole and make yourself an outlet. Plug in. Feel the rage that the rain is trying to douse, let it burn out your grounding wire. Call down the lightning with it, light it up inside you like dynamite in your hand. Wrap your arms around the tree/pole for dear life, know that the lightning with spark through the roots under the dirt, under your feet, a neon tree of life burning up the earthworms and beetles, the sky will spit its forked tongue and the earth will boil but like seeks like— they say you can’t survive seeing g-d, but you will try.
Samara Powers is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in Bird’s Thumb, The Christian Century, Inflectionist Review, and others. She has two children and works in marketing and design. She returned to University in her 40s, completing her BA in Poetry in 2018. More at www.samarawords.com.
