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.

Self-Portrait as Rizzo in the School Yard

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!


after Marty McConnell



I hide behind a waterproof shadow
and red matte lips. You say I can’t hurt,

though you ignore me on our dead-end street.
In the tub at home, I scum pink, peel strings

of pus-puckered skin clean off my nail beds.
I don’t cry. I wait, tuck the bleed under

my tongue, clot pain with spit. In your Ford’s
patinaed backseat I collapsed our altar.

Its centerpiece was me: stripped and naked
and thin as the skin at the wrist, the back

of the knee. I’m not sorry to say the wrong
words for the right reason: I never wanted you.

There are worse things I could do when leaving
is not enough, when leaving is still too much.


Gra[c]e "Grae" Gardiner is a British-American non-binary poet, scholar, public library worker, intermedia installation artist, and goose. Find them online at pearlsthatwere.tumblr.com.

The Center

Contrition: Birds-of-Paradise