Hola, it’s 3:05 PM! Time to take a cafecito break!
Welcome to Poem in the Afternoon, read by a woman-identifying writer who is attending Miami Book Fair 2023. Enjoy this taste of poetry, sponsored by Miami Book Fair, 305 Cafecito (Miami’s Official Cafecito Break), and SWWIM, with Miami's favorite beverage—a cafecito, of course! We look forward to seeing you at the Fair.
Appearance at Miami Book Fair 2023: Catherine Esposito Prescott, Saturday 11/18, 11:30 am, Room 8303
Transcript of poem:
Native to tropical America,
the species was named by Carl Linneas
after the botanist Charles de l’Écluse. Clusia
trees and bushes have large, waxy, elliptical leaves,
whose latex and resin are known to seal wounds. Favorite green
fence for the houses in my neighborhood, some of the oldest are like travel logs at the end of
a hiking trail, each leaf carved with initials and hearts and 4EVAS. On one, a wizard’s lightning
bolt, on another the outline
of a joint, a sailboat, an “I ♥ U”and “baby girl” on another.
In Key West, we etched table numbers into leaves
for my sister’s wedding. Adequate monuments,
the trees note every passing—the bud of new
love, even the most quiet hope. In polka-
dots of shade and pockets of sunlight,
in storm swells and hurricane winds,
the trees hold space, their branches
pull each leaf close and hold tight
as only love can do.
Catherine Esposito Prescott is the author of the chapbooks Maria Sings and The Living Ruin. Her work appears in many journals and anthologies, including EcoTheo Review, Green Mountains Review Online, MER VOX, Mezzo Cammin, NELLE, Northwest Review, Pleiades, Spillway, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and West Trestle Review, as well as Grabbed: Poets & Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment, & Healing and The Orison Anthology. Co-founder of SWWIM and Editor in Chief of SWWIM Every Day, Prescott earned an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from NYU. She leads writing and yoga retreats and teaches vinyasa yoga and yoga philosophy in Miami, where she lives with her family.
From the book, Accidental Garden (Gunpowder Press, 2023), winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize. Permission granted by the author.
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