The Statue of Liberty Walks into a Bar

SWWIM Every Day
by Maria Nazos

by Maria Nazos

Bartender, my pussy is a shoebox locked up like Fort Knox.
Play that country song on the jukebox, about a girl
on death row with nowhere to go. You can do
anything, said grown-ass men like you when I grew
mountains for breasts. Tonight, I don’t need a Ouija board
to know this is one haunted-ass place. Still, I’m staying
until you shove me out. Back home, my walls nail-scratched.
Bedposts carved with so many notches, they’re whittled
down to toothpicks. I contain starving multitudes and keep
giving back. My crown droops so low I can barely see you.
Maybe it’s better this way. You remind me of that woman
in the park asked to leash her dog, who shrilled her vocal
pitch, pressed cell phone to cheek, and called the cops.
It’s hard to tell if you’re even in danger from anyone but yourself.
It’s raining. I’ve gone wishing and have to reel myself back.
The problem with letting men like you in, is you keep coming
and breaking me, again and again. Boy, it’s time you grew
up and learned to speak for yourself. My thighs thick as tree
trunks, though black elm grows up around me. You can’t
cut me off. This land is your land, this land is my land,
but Dutch Elm disease is everyone’s sickness. To say
I’m unhopeful doesn’t mean I don’t have hope. I’d like
to pass this torch, but I won’t. You’re family, like the flat
earther uncle. Every day, I stand at the estuary, wondering
if I should gently pitch in. I want to bait and feed you
to my fish. I want to cry you a river of tears. I hate you.
I love you so much I can barely stand.

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Maria Nazos' poetry, translations, and essays are published in The New Yorker, Cherry Tree, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, and Mid-American Review. She is the author of A Hymn That Meanders (Wising Up Press, 2011) and the chapbook, Still Life (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Maria has received scholarships and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center. She lives with two crazy cats and a patient husband in Lincoln, Nebraska. You can find her at www.marianazos.com.

Longing

SWWIM Every Day
by Eve Grubin

by Eve Grubin


Walking through summer
towards the hair salon in Primrose Hill

two women drift by, one saying to the other:

I have always wanted to do two things:
learn to play the electric guitar and

the other desire lost
among voices and the space

between their mouths and my blue skirt
trembling around my ankles.

I cross the bridge, men and women

speaking on cell phones, running to the train,
their longings unknown,

sharp, pressing into the ground, your longing

hovering somewhere between my fingers,
mine in the heat just above the pavement.

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Eve Grubin is the author of Morning Prayer (Sheep Meadow Press) and The House of Our First Loving (Rack Press). Her poems can be found in American and British literary publications such as American Poetry Review, The North, PN Review, The New Republic, and Poetry Review. She teaches at NYU in London. See www.evegrubin.com.

America (as a Gigantic Female)

SWWIM Every Day
by Jennifer Martelli

by Jennifer Martelli


lay spread eagle on the sidewalk
bleeding out state after state: airless blue deep red.

(The men will come with chalk to trace her shape: white edges like hooks,
some like small penises, or a single mitten, and some crawl through the desert
and under a river.)

Three times the country screamed:
the first scream, an old car’s shrill brakes;
the second, a lovers’ spat, but the country knew the man who slapped her around, perhaps
she asked for it;
third, could’ve been a dog in heat or in want.

And the lit windows were spaces between jack o’lantern teeth, backlit by a fat candle
nestled inside the scraped-out shell.

Honest to god, it could’ve been stopped. Rain-

storm after rainstorm barely washed the blood off this crime scene:
off the hot top, off the granite, off the pitch.

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Jennifer Martelli is the author of My Tarantella (Bordighera Press), as well as the chapbook, After Bird (Grey Book Press, winner of the open reading, 2016). Her work has appeared in Verse Daily, The Sonora Review, and Iron Horse Review (winner, photo finish contest). Martelli is the recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in poetry. She is co-poetry editor for the Mom Egg Review.

On Location

SWWIM Every Day
by H.E. Fisher

by H.E. Fisher


I wait for cherries
at the saloon, step away
from the slot machine to the three-deep bar.
Cowboys tip their hats, order me a Kessler.

Outside is thirty below,
cold that makes sound hard to carry,
chaos shut tight at night you know
is there, but never see coming.

The crew eats steak and chickpeas,
tables pushed together picnic-style,
talk of shot lists and story arcs.
I keep the books.

A crew member we call Cali,
throws me a look, gets up, walks toward me,
surfboard logo on his yellow Billabong tee,
face burnt red from Jack.

I can tell you his Malibu address, his weekly take,
the strange intimacy of our start-up paperwork,
though we’ve never said more than a few words.
Lord knows we’ve never touched.

The gust come off his eyes first—
a fierce, no-warning, hellgate
that pounds my left bicep.
I am knocked sideways by the force of his fist.

A grip catches me. A cameraman checks
for blood & broken bone.
The herd rushes between us for my protection.
He was just drunk, they say. Nothin’ to it, really.

Call time is 8 a.m., next morning.
Cali is on-set with his walkie
and bright future
making big movies, lots of action.

Back in my windowed office, everywhere is prairie:
bison turned aside from near extinction,
hectares of violence under big sky,
each bruise the color of bird feathers.

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H.E. Fisher's poetry has recently appeared in Dream Pop Journal, Yes Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Pithead Chapel. She is pursuing her MFA at City College of New York, where she was awarded the 2019 The Stark Poetry Prize in Memory of Raymond Patterson. H.E. is the editor of (Re) An Ideas Journal. She currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley.

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