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 Off Season

I long for the quiet of a beach town in November. The regulars 
      in the bait shop don’t need to say a thing.
Not a chilly silence, but warm as the pot-bellied stove.
      A confident quiet, as if they’re certain of something. 
I used to fear the anger when no one spoke. Now I know 
      about hand-knit wool cap quiet. Don’t want to tell you
this news
 quiet. And nobody’d better bring up
last weekend
 quiet. Out on the pier, 
wind wails. Waves tear at pilings and one
      fisherman’s boombox drowns out the croakers
another one caught. Inside, Gina keeps the coffee hot
      just the same for all of them. The seagulls
don’t ever shut up, won’t agree to leave it be,
      competing for attention. Gina has names for a few. 
Like Gimme, who sits on the ice machine outside. 
      Cocks an eye at her like his mug is empty. I long 
for the quiet of a beach town in November, without 
      the lonely bartender who wants to hear about the book
I’m reading. It’s a memoir of a season spent in a hermitage 
      and how the silence grew miraculous, not just the blood 
in her ears but the stretching of her soul became audible,
      a music she never wanted to lose. “Music,” he says, 
turning on the TV. “There’s those awards on tonight.” 
      I mark my page, pay up and walk out 
into November. Not a sound from the gulls.

 


Kelly Lenox’s poems, prose and translations are published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, Hubbub, Split Rock Review, and elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad. Her debut collection, The Brightest Rock (2017), received honorable mention for the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, with an MFA from Vermont College. Kelly makes her home in Oregon. (kellylenox.com)

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