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.
bring your own body. call it back from the forest, call it up from the sea floor & watch
how the garden blooms her shipwreck tongue: lilacs & oceans & isn’t it funny how everything
tastes of riptides this spring, you’ll say. & the caramel spades you’ll make of my tongue, &
the salted currents you’ll lay along the flower bed—listen how the garden sighs with her antler
fuzz & trapper fur trimmings left somewhere among ankles & winter & isn’t it lovely how
a hungry mouth cares for such reckless lips? you’ll say. & the tides you’ll prune; the
shark-toothed carrots you’ll pull from their tender-earthed home & place, gently, belly
up, in the basket perched on your feral hip. she’ll wait for you, there, i’ll say. this body
made of bouquets & drownings & the moon’s magnetism. & oh, how you’ll undo my
cheeks along your palm—& watch how easily the jaw sings of god.
An avid introvert and full-time carbon-based life-form, Ashley Cline crash-landed in south Jersey 28 years ago and still calls that strange land home. Most often found listening to Carly Rae Jepsen, her essays on music and feelings have been published by Sound Bites Media, while her poetry has appeared in 404 Ink, Third Point Press, and Francis House.
