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.

Delivery by Siham Karami

When I was born, the brightness burned and I cried out;

the terror and the beauty of going inside out.

 

What early blackout brought me to your sea?

Your waves undo me, your moon’s blue aura pulls my tide out.

 

Why peer into the crystal sphere for reasons?

Why smother our own selves in cross-eyed doubt?

 

I keep swallowing hard and coming back

with my cloud of dust and bugs you shoo-flied out.

 

Half my heart is somewhere in Orion's belt;

the other half, monsoon, turns your riptide out.

 

Hunt me if you will. I am a hunter, too.

Your blazing doom cannot perceive my cool hideout.

 

I was a child of prayer, and still breathe that light,

but light cannot ignite the spot where the fire died out.

 

Just aim a little closer to perfect, you keep saying;

but this arrow's just about bull's-eyed out.


Siham Karami’s poetry and critical work has been or will be published in such places as The Comstock Review, Able Muse, Pleiades, Tupelo Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Mezzo Cammin, The Turnip Truck(s), Literary Mama, and Orchards Poetry as featured poet, among other venues and anthologies. Her first full-length collection will be published at the end of 2018. Nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net, she blogs at sihamkarami.wordpress.com.

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