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.
flash and fade as you slice carrots with that thing
with a blade. Your hand reaches for something called turmer… a powdery thing. Pretty, color of egg yolk like those hens used to lay when you kept them in a shed by the gnarled oak tree. No trees here. You have a room with a kitchenette in this bare apart… away from all you once knew. What was it you once knew? The scent of wet wood covered in moss as rivulets of rain drift down your arms a bonfire crackling on the beach as you run with someone, a young man who is he? A tiny fist grasping your finger— Lizzie—or is it Macie? Where’s the paper where you wrote it? Everything keeps slipping stitches you let slide off a needle without meaning to & when you catch them you see them but can’t tell where they fit. Like the girl in a blue uniform who said you’ll soon move to that unit where there are no kitchenettes & few words. You’re jolted by an acrid scent of that thing that happens when food catches fire charred carrots buried in an orange anthill. Who would do such a thing?
V. A. Bettencourt writes poetry and short prose. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Magma Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Burningword Literary Journal, and West Trestle Review, among others.
