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.

Statuesque

It’s a series of postures, executed
just fast enough to trick the eye
into seeing a single gesture. The uplifted palm,
the stilled foot, elongated
like the endless limbs of bronze
burghers hemmed in by the museum courtyard. 
Chestnut leaves unzip in the pennyweight sun,
coat riding boots and walking shoes in the pea-gravel.
The local women narrow their eyes over tea and watch
two children with book bags poke at a fallen nest
made of steel wool and twigs, 
the abandoned home of mechanical birds, beaks opening 
to their mechanical caw. My knees sink down,
creaking sheet metal; sing in unison.


M.J. Turner’s poems have appeared in Nixes Mate, Spillway, concīs, and I-70 Review. She lives in Massachusetts.

"He's Got an Arm"

Pantoum [Procedure]