by Carol Berg
by Natasha Sajé
Summer Break
SWWIM Every Day will be on a publishing hiatus for the rest of July. Please check back on 8/2 for new poems. Until then, feel free to peruse our archives. If you don’t already, please subscribe to receive a poem a day, so you don’t miss a thing when we’re back up and running.
Weekly Shout Outs will also be on hold. Please continue to send us your wins, so we can celebrate you and your work when we return.
Submissions will remain open. Response times may be a bit delayed as we’re traveling, spending time with our families, writing, and working for SWWIM behind the scenes. Please stay tuned for an announcement about our 2021-22 reading series and other fun collabs.
Feel free to reach out to us via email or through social with any questions.
Happy summer! Stay cool!
XO
SWWIM Team
by Jenny Qi
My mother wanted flowers, fragrant
and lovely. So she flooded young seeds
until they boiled in midday heat,
and when they didn’t bloom, she thought
she could will blossoms with sullen silence.
My father wanted fruit trees, hardy
and useful. So he baked saplings in the sun
until they brittled into sand,
and when they didn’t ripen, he thought
he could shout them into submission.
At night, I snuck into the garden
and sang my pleas into the leaves.
Still, the gardenia blackened as if scorched,
the jasmine shot its stars into the ground,
the peaches puckered around unformed pits.
In the end, all we grew was oleander,
pink flesh burst from clay,
blowing sweet poison to the wind.
______________________________________________________________
Jenny Qi is the author of the debut poetry collection, Focal Point, winner of the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award. Her essays and poems have been published in The New York Times, Tin House, Rattle, and elsewhere, and she has received fellowships from Tin House, Omnidawn, Kearny Street Workshop, and the San Francisco Writers Grotto. She grew up in Las Vegas and now resides in San Francisco, where she completed her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology.
by Shannon Phillips
“…write your sexual life story in five sentences…
Then… do it again…
…a third time. A fourth.” – Melissa Febos
I
His name. His name. His name. My name. Breathe.
II
Three pregnancies, two children. The first. The last. The one.
I am not a math person.
III
I lost myself in a moment that didn’t belong to me. His voice made me do it.
His hands were too important. Night knows where to find me.
Just ask.
IV
It was late. It always is.
One night, while working on an English-Arabic translation project for class, I
typed “gasp” and then reverse-translated the first noun that came up. I was
given the phrase “longing for.” I got an A.
_____________________________________________________________
Shannon Phillips is a freelancer whose most recent chapbook was published by Small Fish Big Pond in 2019. She has an MFA in creative writing, and she is the editor at Picture Show Press.
by Lisa Rhoades
loves dandelions and stands
with an open globe,
and then blows and shrieks
and looks for the next. In the ball field
where we let the dogs run
the grasses have gone to seed,
the baseball diamond is unraked, the basketball
hoops removed, so that kids in quarantine
won’t try to play, won’t yell
and shout and jump this spring.
She won’t remember this. She won’t
remember how we held our breath.
The broad leaf plantain nods
its swollen bud, bindweed twists
through the chain links, a constellation of pink
clover swirls through the smaller white.
She picks flowers one by one.
She sends them flying
on the path of her breath.
______________________________________________________________
Lisa Rhoades is the author of The Long Grass (Saint Julian Press, 2020) and Strange Gravity (Bright Hill Press, 2004). Individual poems have appeared at Barrow Street, Poetry East, Prime Number, Saranac Review, South Carolina Review, and Psaltery & Lyre among others. In addition to teaching poetry, she works as a pediatric nurse in Manhattan. She lives on Staten Island with her spouse and their two children. Find her online at lisarhoades.com.
by Hannah Edwards
She said, "I'm afraid the fluorescent light
is going to fall on me,"
and I laughed, glancing up
at its cracked shield, the low, grating hum
“What if the mercury gas leaks out and—"
I told her she would live forever, then,
like an old Chinese king searching
for the secret to long life.
“I don't want to live that long. I don't know
how much more of that noise I can take.”
I looked up, but wasn’t wise enough
to see pointed shards, already falling.
______________________________________________________________
Hannah Edwards, in her spare time, is a teaching assistant at a local children’s theatre, where she demonstrates talents such as standing on “just one finger” or “breathing under water.” Recently, she and her girlfriend used 3D scanning and modeling to construct authentic Greek drama masks for productions of Oedipus Rex and Seven Against Thebes. Her previous publications include poems in Eclectica and Sugar House Review.
by Leah Claire Kaminski
The lilac leaves make hearts, beating,
flushed as the clouds with water and wind.
The oak in the next yard screams white.
In the Everglades, marl is burning.
If you look up to the blue-black
sky you can spend a lot of time.
Follow planes south until one day
clematis flares on the garage
and a raspberry’s red from soil and sun
and a lily furls its many tongues.
Until the smoke bush puffs red until
the daisies and their wet bald heads
bob in wind. In the Everglades
bobs the bladderwort. Small yellow
hungry head streaming, now burning.
If I flew there on that plane, its whine
in the westerly wind, in the drops
that stuff earth into air, push me
south, what would I see, except red
air, red tide, flooding city, no home.
______________________________________________________________
Leah Claire Kaminski's poems appear in places like Bennington Review, Fence, Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, and ZYZZYVA. Dancing Girl Press published the chapbook, Peninsular Scar. Some of her recent honors include Grand Prize in the Summer Literary Seminars Fiction & Poetry Contest and a residency at Everglades National Park.
by Janice Lobo Sapigao
A coleus plant will bloom flowers when it is stressed and nearing the end of its life cycle. The plant knows it will die if continued exposure to unfavorable conditions continues, so it blooms to produce seed.
When you look for something,
you’ll find it where it isn’t.
I interpreted the tiny lime-colored
bouquet as growth. I sent its
silhouette to the group chat
proclaiming its bloom as mine.
When I wonder why my mother
preferred plastic plants, I think about
how it’s beautiful to want to give something
to the world they think they’re leaving
and how gardening websites suggest
pinching, which is cutting the flowers off
so the plant can spend its energy on
leaf growth—or wing span—or flight
to sprout is to flash a sign of life,
which is actually of near-death, of
the last thing she asked me for was
“coffee,” of compost, of cutting
Nurses and doctors’ emails often said our
beloved experience a surge of energy
When I wonder how else she will show up
I find her there flourishing.
______________________________________________________________
Janice Lobo Sapigao (she/her) is a poet from San José, CA. She is the author of two books of poetry, microchips for millions (Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc., 2016) and like a solid to a shadow (Nightboat Books, 2017). She is the 2020-2021 Santa Clara County Poet Laureate.
by Grace Bauer
This time we’re in a city—
the Big Apple, let’s say, or some other metropolis
so brightly lit the sky loses all memory
of stars—except maybe the kind you might spot
getting out of a taxi or into a limo in front
of some swank hotel. Tonight, Ms. S
could be one of them in her little black something
so tight it’s almost nothing, almost skin, almost sin,
or the temptation to commit one. She loves
the slippery slope of social lubrication, glows
with the possibility of a room packed with bodies
pumped by music and an urge to be part of
this thing called crowd. It’s a sense of belonging
that goes beyond the group of friends she came with,
embraces every stranger who tilts their head
or waves a hand in animated small talk.
Ms. S feels her heart flood with a kind of affection
for the lot of them, the shaky enterprise of connection.
If she wanted, she knows she could find someone here
to spend the night with, but it’s the night
itself she decides she most desires.
She slips out the door—past the drinkers, the dancers,
the bouncers, the smokers huddled in a cloud
near the door, lets the music of the streets pull her forward—
block by block, with no place to arrive beyond motion.
Block after block: the steady whir
of traffic, the tap of her high heels on concrete,
the Are you kidding me’s? or then his boss said’s
of intermittent passersby, the occasional honk of horn.
Another block. And then a corner she turns—and suddenly
the moon is hanging bright as a disco ball between
two towering buildings. Full faced and shimmering.
Ms. S halts as if an invisible hand had grabbed her
at the nape. The upswept ‘do she’d secured with pins
and product shags around her shoulders, the fine hairs
on her arms thicken into pelt and the manicured nails
on her fingers and toes sharpen and curl into claws. She feels herself
coming alive inside the midnight of her body, the wilderness
of this city she claims as her turf. From far off,
she hears—is that a siren? Or an urgent call
from some pack that is beckoning her home?
What rises in her throat is beyond thought or language:
the wild that she is: calling back.
______________________________________________________________
Grace Bauer has published six collections of poems—most recently, Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems (University of Nebraska/Backwaters Press, 2021). She is also co-editor of the anthology, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. Her poems, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.
by Marissa Glover
Marissa Glover lives in Florida, where she teaches at Saint Leo University and serves as co-editor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Marissa’s creative work was most recently published in Rattle and her poem “The World Asks Too Much of Mothers,” first featured in Whale Road Review, is a 2020 Best of the Net Finalist. Her full-length poetry collection, Let Go of the Hands You Hold, was released by Mercer University Press on April 1, 2021. You can follow Marissa on Twitter and Instagram at _MarissaGlover_.
by Sanjana Nair
there were two birds
the dapper jay, the early robin
you were blue
I, fire-breasted
the day went haywire
I should have flown
you, loud with need
keeping me with the worms
the ground is not warm
this frosty, winter morning
the dirt
all I know
______________________________________________________________
Sanjana Nair is a tenured, full-time professor at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She taught previously at New York University and Miami University and served as the first Treasurer for the Asian American Poetry organization Kundiman. Her poetry has been published in various places such as Spoon River Poetry Review, Fence Magazine, JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, The Southampton Review, and others. Deeply invested in collaboration, her work has been performed in multiple Emotive Fruition shows New York City and her piece, "The Lady Apple," a collaboration between poet and composer, was performed at Tribeca’s Flea Theater and featured on National Public Radio’s Soundcheck. She has appeared at Barnes & Noble in Union Square, NYC’s Rubin Museum and others. She resides with her family in Brooklyn.
by Hannah Stephenson
You must be a Very Good Child
the florist at the grocery store pronounces
to the man standing before her
buying flowers for his mother
On Valentine’s Day all the customers clutch roses
as they shop It is as if there is a wedding
somewhere in here and we are all in it but
skipped rehearsal so we don’t know where
to stand Red and pink foil balloons sway and spin
under the AC’s breeze Is this enough baby’s breath
the florist asks That’s perfect the customer says
but I think she could go on adding more
fleshing out this armful of blooms with soapsud
with froth with gathered frost
In fact I want a dozen bouquets composed
solely of baby’s breath Tiny bits of snow at the tips
of the skinny green strands A constellation
of condensation collected from the exhalations
of infants and toddlers and children and tweens
and all their future progeny Generations of babies
and growing humans safely securely breathing in and out
Sighing Yawning Propelling responses across the yard
to the listener at the back door announcing
Time to come back inside If we saw flowers in the currency
of time these blooms would be seconds and carnations minutes
and tulips half hours and roses hours
I have rediscovered a love for filler flowers
fresh or flattened Please fill an entire cart with them
and sail it back toward me The wheels whirring
an ode to the exalted ordinary
I am trying so hard not to let this poem end
in death for once So here goes nothing
Today may you show a picture of a heart
to those you adore as paltry proof
May you adorn your hair with pink
and ribbons May your flowers taste rain
as you rush to the car and as they dream
their way into the big dark they were born
to become may they not be alone May they
carry with them the memory of light
______________________________________________________________
Hannah Stephenson is a poet and editor living in Northern Virginia. She is the author of Cadence and In the Kettle, the Shriek. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, 32 Poems, Vela, The Journal, and Poetry Daily. You can visit her online at The Storialist.
by .chisaraokwu.
only the morning women
& their blue-clean teeth remain
women stone-lit & moonshined
women erased from their belly laughs
pushing dead flowers
these unfashionable cotton spaces
we rest our tears upon
their white-green foundation / they
twice exiled dark-boned domestics
with a look in the eye & a war-cry
despite several home-goings
we debate rations
sullied hands pushing late evenings
& middays back
beneath the earth to wait.
______________________________________________________________
.chisaraokwu. (she/her) is an Igbo-American artist & healthcare futurist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Glass, Obsidian, Tinderbox Poetry, Midnight & Indigo, and others. In 2020, she was awarded a Cave Canem Fellowship in poetry.
by Laura Sweeney
Over rows and rows of cornfields, the June blue sky
roils with road dust through my rolled down window
as I drive north towards the Quad Cities,
towards that sky I’ll do anything not to miss.
And when I cross the Mississippi, towards the white
clouds I’ve longed to see, I imagine the ghosts
thwarted by the Big Muddy while I’m tonicked like
the snow that made everything dormant and clean.
And while I’m thankful for the icicles that decorated
my patio this winter, thankful for the wildflowers
and redbuds, the dogwoods and Bradford pears blooming
this spring, still I prefer my clouds of Iowa-June, far
from the dark cloud of southern Illinois hovering over me,
which after two years I can’t name, though I’ve seen it
in the bare branches, spiked like spindles of a gasolier
whose candles burn out yet reach up, sick for light.
______________________________________________________________
Laura Sweeney facilitates Writers for Life in central Iowa. She represented the Iowa Arts Council at the First International Teaching Artist's Conference in Oslo, Norway. Her poems and prose appear in fifty-plus journals in the States, Canada, Britain, and China. Her recent awards include a residency at Sundress Publication's Firefly Farms, a scholarship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and participation in the Kaz Creative Nonfiction Conference. This winter she is reading for Water-Stone Review.
by Lesley Wheeler
A man in a suit approached and touched my arm.
Would I pose in front of the merry-go-round?
I was thirteen, free for an hour, in the middle
of Paramus Park Mall, in America. I was America.
The man was leading a tour; the tourists spoke
no English. My English mother once said, Your sister
is beautiful, but you are reasonably attractive. She chose
my clothes, that day a blouse abuzz with tiny flowers,
a pink pleated skirt. Yes, I said, and sat on the bench.
Everybody smiled. My hair curled like orchid petals.
A malicious carousel horse whispered, Why
would they point their cameras at you? As if
you were pretty. This will be a story, I replied.
Of glass eyes, blind, that saw bloom in me.
______________________________________________________________
Lesley Wheeler’s newest books are The State She's In, her fifth poetry collection, and Unbecoming, her first novel. Her collection of hybrid essays, Taking Poetry Personally, will appear in 2021. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Massachusetts Review, Kenyon Review Online, Ecotone, Gettysburg Review, and other journals. Poetry Editor of Shenandoah, she lives in Virginia and blogs about poetry at lesleywheeler.org.
by Arminé Iknadossian
She would be sitting by the Mediterranean
at sundown, the sky as red as Campari,
singing, or maybe sharpening her cutlery
on a large stone. She would eat black olives
as she watched the burning sea, its lashes
opening and closing at her feet, its stories rising
into evening before pulling away its long skirt.
A hurricane lamp would cast shadows
on the sand with its bright flame. Some nights
she would talk to the flame, ask it probing
questions as if all flames were related.
Other days she would just laugh, shake her head,
whisper the names of her enemies
while collecting bits of sea glass to rub
between her thumb and forefinger, one for each
word God spoke to her. Green for “daughter”,
brown for “pity”, white for “Orleans”.
But most often, she would talk to the sea,
its curling fingers of foam, its fists of water
like a woman climbing out of ash and bone.
______________________________________________________________
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Arminé Iknadossian’s family fled to California when she was four years old to escape the civil war. After graduating from UCLA, Iknadossian earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University. The author of All That Wasted Fruit (Main Street Rag), Iknadossian’s work is included in XLA Anthology, SWWIM, Whale Road Review, Southern Florida Poetry Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and The American Journal of Poetry. She has received fellowships from Idyllwild Arts, The Los Angeles Writing Project and Otis College of Art and Design. Iknadossian offers writing workshops and manuscript consultations. Discover more at www.surprisetheline.com and www.armineiknadossian.com.
by Donna Vorreyer
I think of her as I wander from room to room in
my blue bathrobe, this anchoress who was always
alone. Now that I am home, her story lingers, one
I recited as I ushered visitors through her reproduced
cell. She survived the Black Death, its scourge and
stench, bore more than enough weight for one life.
I would think she would desire only sweetness—
green fields starred with thistle, spheres of milkweed
luring butterflies. Instead she chose a cell with no exit,
silence and stone. Three windows for her triune God.
At least she chose it.
Here at home, the weight of my own solitude spreads
like a yellow bruise. I haven’t showered for days, but
since she rarely bathed at all, I’m good. Authentic.
She penned pious revelations about the Lord while I
scribble lists and binge The Young Pope. Close enough.
I know she was revered as holy, as close to God as one
could get, but surely she missed the heat of touch, the lock
of fingers intertwined, the key of them unwinding. Surely
she wept each time the priest intoned Hoc est corpus
meum pro vobis—this is my body, given for you.
A body without touch cannot be certain it exists.
____________________________________________________________
Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016), and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Her work has appeared in Rhino, Tinderbox Poetry, Poet Lore, Sugar House Review, Waxwing, and other journals, and she serves as an associate editor for Rhino Poetry. Recently retired from 36 years in public education, she can’t wait to see what happens next.
by Katherine Riegel
So much goes on in the country of my backyard
that I need a throne to oversee it all. Of course the dogs
spill out through the back door
into their favorite room. They squat and sniff,
chase toads, watch the neighbor’s border collie
spring up to try to see them over the fence.
Birds inhabit the air and the trees, call dibs
on the feeder, flee when the mourning doves
or the starlings come bumbling in like those old
chubby planes barely making the runway.
Hummingbirds ignore us all, distant as ballerinas.
The lilies I inherited from the previous owner
swell, about to open gaudy orange umbrellas
that will split and bend backwards like curious
octopi. Coreopsis presents buttons of green buds
in preparation for a festival of yellow. I should be
planting new flowers for the dogs to trample
but I have no energy for extra heartbreak, this month
last year the month of my sister’s diagnosis
and her gone before winter solstice. But I shouldn’t
forget the compost pile, all the vegetable detritus
and tea bags and egg cartons mixing into a rank
stew, the miracle of carbon breaking down
so in a few months I can remove the lower panel
and shovel out something better, richer,
the result of neglect and transformation in the dark.
Oh, believe me, I know,
the shadows of leaves sway and flutter
over the grass, a hundred hands waving,
and every time I breathe, I am waving back.
______________________________________________________________
Katherine Riegel is the author of Love Songs from the End of the World (Main Street Rag 2019), the chapbook, Letters to Colin Firth, and two more books of poetry. Her work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Offing, Orion, Poets.org, Tin House, and elsewhere. She is co-founder and poetry editor for Sweet Lit. Find her at katherineriegel.com.
by Megan Merchant