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.
Abecedarian for My Neighbor, Whose Name I Still Don't Know
A garden born beyond my window. Not my backyard, my neighbor’s. Before coronavirus, before isolation, she and I didn’t acknowledge each other. Every night my dogs spilled from my back door, and she sat outside with a glass of wine listening to—something. I’d hush to spy but could never tell. I imagined long-distance love, her voice joined with his. Maybe Rosetta Stone, too low to know what language. No wave, no hello.
Little pots line the wooden deck, matching sprigs of green. A tarp covers nothing, for now. She tells me, You’re the only person I’ve seen in days.
Planting’s like praying, both quests for communion. We receive stale wafers on our shining tongues, gather tomatoes fallen off the vine too soon. I’m an unbeliever who only pulls weeds, puts voids in the ground instead of life. But witness this small miracle: she was X in her yard, I was Y in mine. We’re still rooted in these zones, but now our voices soar over the fence.
Melissa Fite Johnson is a high school English teacher who lives with her husband and dogs in Lawrence, KS. She is the author of A Crooked Door Cut into the Sky, winner of the 2017 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Sidereal, Stirring, Whale Road Review, Broadsided Press, and elsewhere. See more at melissafitejohnson.com.
