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.
Tempel-Tuttle takes her time orbiting the sun. Slow, but fierce. Leaves her signature and when Earth crosses her path— an orchestrated show of light.
Just before dawn, you lie on the concrete sidewalk five hours behind the East Coast, a symphony of birds singing the morning awake.
You snap pictures of Jupiter, Venus and Mars, the distance between immeasurable with just the eye.
Then Leonid's radiant falls through the constellation Leo and the shower changes everything.
I ask when you'll be home. You answer, right quick.
Just after midnight, I lie down on a cold driveway, dead leaves scratching its surface. Above me, pines and red oaks tip-toe their way to the northern sky.
My Scorpio lives by the moon. Has a hard time forgetting. Your Aries lives close to the edge of Mars. We will forgive each other for this every day.
The comet lumbers along. The meteor shower comforts. Mother Earth spins.
Right quick takes on new meaning in space. Thirty-three years to orbit just once? We are experts at waiting.
Dawn Leas is the author of Take Something When You Go, (Winter Goose Publishing 2016), and I Know When to Keep Quiet, (Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, San Pedro River Review, The Pedestal Magazine, SoFloPoJo, SWWIM, and elsewhere. Her work won an honorable mention in the 2005 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She's a writer, editor, and writing coach. For more information, please visit www.thehammockwriter.com.
