Crooked teeth, chipmunk cheeks, all ears—your mind
is the mirror, and the mirror is the
gap you can step into, a place to hide—
Gary Nadir beneath you on the slide.
He lifts your skirt: your panties on display
as you fall through the breach, a cave of shame—
Morning toast confined in your mouth all day
[so you don’t have to swallow what you hate]
Gary Nadir stretched underneath your swing,
under your desk, behind you on the slide—
Gary Nadir follows you through the school gate—
He lifts your skirt, your panties on display.
The nurse says lice, lines wrong in the school play—
you fall through—you fall through, you fall through
a catalog of shames—
You beg your mother to wear slacks to school.
Gary N.’s rage when he raises your skirt
to uncover the shorts you snuck from home.
At recess you bolt through the trees
that surround the playground. He’s after you,
ultimately shoves you to the ground—
On your back in the pine nettles, he rips
away your shorts, even your panties with
surprising ease— and he sees, and he sees,
and he sees—
Rachel Neve-Midbar is a poet and essayist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Salaam of Birds (Tebot Bach 2020) was chosen by Dorothy Barresi for the Patricia Bibby First Book Prize. She is also the author of the 2014 chapbook, What the Light Reveals. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, The Georgia Review, and Grist as well as other journals and anthologies. Rachel is a current PhD candidate at The University of Southern California.
Upcoming Events:
4/12 / Meet the Artist with Didi Jackson / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed / 6 pm / Free
4/12 / Poetry Reading with Didi Jackson and Judy Ireland / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed / 7:30 pm / Free
4/15 / O, Miami Festival Check out a Poet with Mary Block / Books & Books Coral Gables / Live / 2-5 pm / Free
4/28 / O, Miami Festival Conjuring Spirits: An Ekphrastic Workshop, Led by Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Presented in Partnership with The Deering Estate / Live / Sold-Out
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A Note About Submissions:
If you have submitted your work lately, to us or another journal, you may have noticed a response that says something like, “Your application has been submitted to SWWIM Every Day. Thank you for using Submittable.” Please know that we are not intentionally being rude. Nor is this an error. Submittable has made a system-wide change requiring users to verify their email addresses. If you choose not to verify your email address, you will not be able to receive personalized responses because the system will automatically override whatever the journal has set up.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that, according to the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses [CLMP], “it looks like submitters will need to verify their email only once—after a verified email address has been linked to their Submittable account, they will no longer need to take this step for future submissions to any magazine/organization.”
So please do verify your email address, for us or any other journal, which you should only have to do once systemwide. That way, you will continue to receive personalized responses. In the meantime, until everyone has caught up with the new directive, we have changed our response to, “Dear Poet.” We hope that fixes the problem and saves you from wondering what’s been happening.
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