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.

On Memory

She let her daughter paint her toenails blue.
No fun if they forgot to play salon:
soak feet in water; rub with scented lotion.

She let her daughter comb and style her hair,
rip and giggle while she sat still: Ow, ow!
The child knew: You’re writing how I torture you.

They walked and they looked up. A butterfly
became a bird, the bird a silver plane
surveying fallen blocks.
The blocks remain.


Deborah Diemont lives in Syracuse, New York. She has been a nominee for the Poets’ Prize and a recipient of the Wil Mills fellowship to the West Chester Poetry Conference for her sonnet collection, Diverting Angels. Her poems have appeared in Measure, New American Writing, The Nervous Breakdown, The Raintown Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. Her new poetry book is The Charmed House from Dos Madres Press.

Fifth Grade: Port Wentworth, Georgia

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