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.

A Plump Wife & A Big Barn Never Did Any Man Harm

Antique store find: this aphorism on a trivet.
I buy it for irony. I could hurt him
with a thunder thigh squeeze, a motorboat suffocation.
I’m debating whether to hang this as a makeshift plaque
or place every hot pot on it.
I joke when I sit around the barn, I sit around the barn.
When the barn door opens, so plump.
There is harm done sometimes
taking the pressure off,
like once the body knows crush—like every time I ask he says—
the organs are rearranged—no, you’re not hurting me.


Jennifer Jackson Berry is the author of The Feeder (YesYes Books, 2016). Her latest chapbook, Bloodfish, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2019 as part of the Keystone Chapbook Series. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

All the Ways to Want Things

Beauty Being Beauty