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.
How do you picture the shape of a year in your head Is a question my grandmother often asked.
The jog at dusk ends at the point to watch the sun disappear. We drag sticks in the sand to spell out our names. To myself I write: Happy Birthday.
The few trees before the beach in silhouette. The sky is red, the boats in the small harbor, docked.
On the Rappahannock my grandparents moved to retire. As they aged, my mother rented herself this house. Because the land is the same level as the water
The house sits high up on stilts. At night, from bed, The stars through the windows burn a circuit of lights.
It all depends on where you start. A year is a circle, If not a point around which experience spirals.
Because our mother is gone, we do not need the house. We tell ourselves this. Soon we will clean out inside.
Sally Keith’s fourth collection of poetry, River House was published by Milkweed Editions in 2015; she is the author of The Fact of the Matter (Milkweed 2012) and two previous collections of poetry, Design, winner of the 2000 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and Dwelling Song (UGA 2004). Recent Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, she teaches at George Mason University and lives in Fairfax, VA.
