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.
prurient, watching sex between bat rays, their paired wings stirring water. Oblivious to anything but each other, they float joined from the harbor’s sand bed to its surface with a grace Fonteyn and Baryshnikov would envy. How can I not project pure liquid pleasure on them— their rising and rolling, gentle thrash, the long, slow synchronous glide? How can I not imagine tenderness when they spread their wings like eagles coasting on a thermal and swirl their own currents? Until done, or alerted by our canoe— its aggressive whisper in the water, its manufactured buoyancy— they startle and shoot away like stars.
Susan Cohen is the author of Democracy of Fire (2022), A Different Wakeful Animal (2016), and Throat Singing (2012), as well as two chapbooks and a non-fiction book. A former journalist and contributing writer to the Washington Post Magazine, she earned an MFA from Pacific University. Her poetry and translations have appeared in 32 Poems, New Ohio Review, Poetry International, Poetry Northwest, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Southern Humanities Review, Southern Review, Verse Daily, and many anthologies. Her honors include the Rita Dove Award, Milton Kessler Poetry Prize, Terrain.org Annual Poetry Prize, the Red Wheelbarrow Prize, and a Special Mention in the Pushcart Prizes. She lives in California. See susancohen-writer.com.
prurient, watching sex between bat rays, their paired wings stirring water. Oblivious to anything but each other, they float joined from the harbor’s sand bed to its surface with a grace Fonteyn and Baryshnikov would envy. How can I not project pure liquid pleasure on them— their rising and rolling, gentle thrash, the long, slow synchronous glide? How can I not imagine tenderness when they spread their wings like eagles coasting on a thermal and swirl their own currents? Until done, or alerted by our canoe— its aggressive whisper in the water, its manufactured buoyancy— they startle and shoot away like stars.
Susan Cohen is the author of Throat Singing, A Different Wakeful Animal, and the forthcoming Democracy of Fire. Her recent poems appeared in 32 Poems, Northwest Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, and won the Red Wheelbarrow Prize judged by Mark Doty and the 11th Annual Poetry Prize from Terrain.org judged by Arthur Sze. She has an MFA from Pacific University and lives in Berkeley, California.
