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.

You close your mouth
to the spoon’s cool curve,
not impressed with the cubes
of summer melon. Soon, you
will refuse other favorites,
maple nut ice cream, clusters
of chocolate-bound
peanuts.

We are told it’s a blessing,
this gradual refusal of what
you love. Your face still
bursts into relief when you
see us, we are swallowed
in the split-second when
we are daughters a mother
just wants to hold. Though
the nurses won’t say it, we
know this is cruel—
this reminder of who
you once were, of what
you’ve since lost.

We want you summer
again. When we’d watch
you half the melon, scoop
the mess of seeds from its
center, carve flesh so carefully
none was lost to the rind.

We didn’t get it, but now we know
you were teaching us everything
we’d ever need to know about love.
The way it halves us. Slices us.
Carves the best of us from what
cannot be swallowed. Closes
its mouth to the rest. 


Kami Westhoff is the author of Sleepwalker, winner of Minerva Rising's Dare to Be Contest, and Your Body a Bullet, co-written with Elizabeth Vignali. Her work has also appeared in various journals, including Meridian, Carve, Third Coast, The Pinch, West Branch, and Waxwing.

Clearing the Throat Chakra

To the boys who bully my nephew in the 6th grade