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.

The Cuckoo by Maureen Thorson

The cuckoo is a trash bird.

It puts its eggs in other birds’ nests

and peaces out, like, whatever.

Cuckoo does what it wants,

which is eat all your fruit,

then get up in a clock

and make out with the gears.

You pretend not to care but it hurts.

And while you cry in the bathroom,

cuckoo “borrows” your car,

doesn’t come home till dawn

smelling like weed

with a long scratch on the hood.

Your friends don’t come around now,

your mom cut you off

‘cause you spent the money

she gave you for rent

to feed him, but they don’t see

how huge and fat and

hungry hungry hungry cuckoo is, how soft

how big his eyes, shiny with tears,

how he needs you

and so you say okay, even

though cuckoo’s big body crumples

your furniture, squeezes you,

cramps you until your breath is shallow

and so you keep double-time hoofing it

to love this swollen baby in your nest.


Maureen Thorson is the author of two poetry collections, Applies to Oranges (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011) and My Resignation (Shearsman 2014). Her most recent chapbook, The Woman, the Mirror, the Eye, was published by Bloof Books in 2015. She lives in Falmouth, Maine, where she performs the duties of personal servant to an extremely grouchy cat.

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Fuoco by Hilary Sideris