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.

4 A.M. nocturne

It starts with the coyotes
down by duckweed pond, yipping
like a pack of feral children

then the trees shift, rustling witches
in their living dresses, twigs rubbing 
against branches like broken hip joints. 

The geese took flight hours before,
ahead of the storm. I heard them go.
I’m waiting now, window open.

The light on the elder tree shifts
from purple bruise to moss. I pull off
my shirt, shuddering, sweat dripping.

The weathervane spins in raucous screeches
and the cat is under the house, tail wrapped, 
scenting the incoming tide when again

something shifts. It’s raining.
The solitude of night’s kingdom takes its tongue 
from my mouth, flees in the receding dark. 

*This poem was a Finalist in the SWWIM For-the-Fun-of-It Contest.


After various stints as both staff and adjunct professor in urban universities, raising two kids, and years of freelancing in the online world of editing and writing, Sarah Stockton, MA now lives in the Pacific Northwest and is the editor of River Mouth Review. Sarah's poems have appeared in Glass Poetry, Rise Up Review, The Shallow Ends, SWIMM, Kissing Dynamite, and Crab Creek Review, among others. Her debut chapbook is Time's Apprentice (dancing girl press, 2021).

Hunger

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