You make me think of pewter, sticky on the inside
thrift shop pitchers—all those years of accumulated
gunk that no sponge or bottle brush can reach.
You make me think of heavy sow-belly skies,
100% humidity—the weighty weight of it all.
Grey, you are the antithesis of bougainvillea,
cheery saccharine packets, gyrating disco
balls. You are a stinking hot breeze
rifling the old neighborhood. You are wilting
breasts, senile angiomas, vaginitis, osteoporosis.
Oh little bitty grey moth plastered to the grey door frame
who thought yourself invisible—I see you
and raise you three parts 506 to one part 505
to equal parts peroxide.
Cindy Veach’s most recent book is Her Kind (CavanKerry Press, 2021). She is also the author of Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), named a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a ‘Must Read’ by The Massachusetts Center for the Book, and the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, The Journal, Salamander, and SWWIM Every Day, among others. She is the recipient of the Philip Booth Poetry Prize and the Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of MER. See www.cindyveach.com.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s National Poetry Month project: Sing the Body: A Collection of Poems Praising Our Selves!
With support from Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) and Florida International University’s Center for Women and Gender Studies, we are publishing poems that celebrate body positivity and our selves.
In addition to publishing the poems as poems of the day, 10 select Sing the Body poems will be displayed on FIU’s main campus near mirrors and places where women encounter themselves. These poems will live in a dedicated portfolio on our website.
Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting SWWIM Every Day! Happy National Poetry Month!
