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.

Briars. Ellsworth Kelly. 1961.

a meditation on a drawing of the same name, hanging in the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa



It’s hard to tell whether
these outlines you’ve left 
patterned in the snow 
were meant to be fruits 
or leaves—or maybe 
even flowers; the thorns, 
most definite, tell of blossoms 
too delicate to hold 
in human hands. 

I would become a beetle 
if it meant I could trace 
your flowers to fruit— 
if it meant I’d never 
damage you or leave you 
lonely.   

I think of you, lonely 
in our yellow house  
freckled with ladybugs 
robed in daffodils. 

If I could be a bird flying 
from this city to yours, 
I would alight so softly 
that the dew of your branches
would never know 
I’d kissed them good morning.   

You’re living proof 
a red-breasted robin can dance 
its whole life on eggshells; 
can subsist on & resist 
its own heart. 

You’re living proof 
I can love a shadow  
of a shadow of a shadow of 
a single moment 
in a rose garden. 

Now my palms wet with bird hearts 
beating like beetle wings.


Skylar Alexander is the author of Searching for Petco (Forklift Books, 2021), a graphic designer, and teacher. Her work has appeared in many places, including Cutbank, Smokelong Quarterly, and Forklift, Ohio. She writes about pop culture, chronic illness, queerness, violence, travel, and about growing up in rural Iowa. See skylaralexandermoore.com.

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