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.
I would embrace you today but your body is haylage low sugar meadow late cut from slow rolling hills sweet grass shorn close every year down to clover down to root into mineral-rich loam now your home home also the centerpiece pond plated with silver fish scales around whose radiance we hiked marveled at the rising moon all those Aprils ago do you remember I would embrace you today but your body is breath hot in the nostrils of a sorrel mare fecund with foal with ferment of alfalfa of bat guano frass of honeybees my sister today I am alone and so Ered of grief ache instead to spread wide my wings take in the essence of everything loud jazz notes of geese praise be to the enigma of their homing which is all that departs comes back just as sure as we will never be parted for on this day I have braided you a nest marker from the long reeds of my missing so that we may embrace with my arms which are your arms my body your easter as much a part of me now as the mineral and mare’s breath the heartbeat in my neck all your life left unlived oh sister beloved sister
Michele Karas holds an MFA in creative writing from CUNY: The City College of New York. A Community of Writers poetry contributor, her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Tab Journal, Rogue Agent, Midwestern Review, Narrative, Thrush, and elsewhere. Originally from San Diego, Michele now makes her home in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley.
