SWWIM Every Day

Brave the tundra, where species cling to life.
Brave infusions that chemical a vein.

Brave a city blackout with its window-shatter,
and lightning igniting a forest away.

Brave scoldings and finger-pointing.
Voices louder than yours.

Brave your sad past, your afraid past.
All that is to come.

Brave the horizon of gray.
Brave the whimper of years.

Brave these trees, first maple, then oak,
losing their familiars, one by one.

Breathe again and again.
Brave again.

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

Kyle Potvin’s chapbook, Sound Travels on Water, won the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. She is a two-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Whale Road Review, Tar River Poetry, Ecotone, The New York Times, and others. Her poetry collection, Loosen, is coming from Hobblebush Books in January 2021. Kyle lives in southern New Hampshire.