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.

What Haunts Me

Sometimes in meditation 
I see a pinhole of light 
in the distance. It disappears
and I can’t get it back,
can’t go to the place it’s leading me. 
The same beacon from anchored boats
on a dark ocean. 

I wake to light rising,
to thoughts of two sisters
in treatment together. 
Jolted back to when 
their pregnancies aligned–
Elated until
one lost the baby 
eight months in. 

Now the day is becoming
overcast. I stare at the clean
white rug, the table that once 
leaned in a forest. Sunrise, 
but I see no sun.


Paula Colangelo received an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. Her poetry is published in Connotation Press: An Online Artifact and in Lily Poetry Review. Her book reviews appear in Pleiades and Rain Taxi. She has taught poetry in a healing-focused program at a rehabilitation center in New Jersey.

Briars. Ellsworth Kelly. 1961.

Heirlooms