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.

Hunger

Red Jello in the ice box—a constant—
no dimpled copper mold, but the Pyrex

dish, clear oblong glass shimmering
with the cheap glow of sugar, gelatin,

and red dye #40. In her shirtwaist
and crisp apron, she opened that white

enameled door, where sustenance shone
in iced light, glossy housewife’s magazine

ad, animal sacrifice in fine print:
gelatin from collagen of boiled bones

and hide, ground down to magic powder,
instant 1950s sheen. She bought it

by the box. She gobbled it by the bowl.
In place of pearls around her neck, she strung

holes she’d dug in the dirt where she’d buried
her words. In place of high heels, she inked

Bible verses on the soles of her feet,
trailing smeary hope and admonition

as she walked across the damp linoleum
of her just-mopped floor. Want congealed

under her tongue and rotted, along
with teeth—all false by 1964.

After years of gnawing with a porcelain
smile she’d been told was good as a real one,

her jawbone worn thin as their bank account,
she could no longer chew the bread of life.

Behind that shining white portal—the blood
and the body, the ruby sacrament.

She rose in the night, her longing so faint
all it took to fill it was a bowl of sweet lies.



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


Janice Northerns is the author of Some Electric Hum (Lamar University Literary Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals, including Ploughshares, The Laurel Review, descant, The Chariton Review, and Southwestern American Literature. Awards include a Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts residency, a Sewanee Writers’ Conference scholarship, and the Robert S. Newton Creative Writing Award. The author grew up on a farm in rural West Texas and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University. She and her husband live in southwest Kansas. Read more at www.janicenortherns.com or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @JaniceNortherns

Grab Shot

4 A.M. nocturne