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.

Planned Parenthood, 2002

sterile, cold, and stirruped
opposite side of the protest line

in my knee socks, black eyeliner cool.
this is a minor inconvenience,

waiting for a green light, a refill.
the doctor tells me to lie back and relax.

there’s a poster of Barcelona
on the ceiling. I think I’d like to see Italy

some day before the world ends.
I think I’d feel less complicated

in a country where I don’t understand
the language. just be young,

pretty and confused, that’s all they’ll ask of you.
isn’t this easy? yes, this is soooo easy.

lie down and be a good girl,
take your pills at the same time every day.

I think the doctor hates me, the way
her callous fingers dig in, rough,

while I grip the metal table, grit my teeth,
think of Barcelona, Atlantis, deep space.

I am anywhere else. I am nowhere.
inconsequential, could never be

more than a supporting role
in another's tragedy. with her back turned,

she tells me I won’t be leaving here
with my paper bag of pills, I’ve become

the worst part of her day at the office.
she suggests I go south, cross state lines

where a problem like mine can be solved
(and she doesn’t mean Barcelona).

I’m as hollow as an x-ray, could see
right through me. I’m a split lip, bled dry.

I have a pink paper folded in my back pocket
when I leave,  it’s got an address in Maryland,

it’s got a doomsday countdown. a signholder
says this is no place for a kid like you.


Erin Cisney is a poet from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in such places as Dust Poetry Magazine, rust & moth, and Spry Lit Journal, among others. Her poetry collection, Anatomy Museum, is available from Unsolicited Press.

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