• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Willawaw Journal

Online Poetry & Art

  • Home
  • Journal
    • Willawaw Journal Spring 2023 Issue 16
    • Willawaw Journal Fall 2022 Issue 15
    • Willawaw Journal Spring 2022 Issue 14
    • Willawaw Journal – All Issues
  • Submissions
  • About
    • About the Journal
    • About the Editor
    • Behind-the-Scenes Creatives and Advisors
  • Contact

Sherri Levine

Once

–after Cecilia Woloch

Weren’t we standing there once,
gripping the walls, pulling off shirts,
unsnapping straps, rustling up the sheets?
But weren’t we naked and fragile and young?
Weren’t you the hum and I the mum?
Didn’t we know it wouldn’t all turn out,
And weren’t we standing there once?

 

Swimming in the Rain

With my hands on her still strong shoulders,
I steer my mother
to the discount rack,
so she won’t complain
about the prices.
The sales girl comes over,
wearing an Oregon Ducks T-shirt,
her smart phone squeezed
into the back pocket
of her rhinestone jeans.
Cracking her gum, she asks
my mother in slow motion,
CAN-I-HELP-YOU?
My mother is slow as rain,
a creaky, twisted
bicycle chain.
Back at the car, she lifts
the black bathing suit
and folds it neatly on her lap.
“I look like a fat seal in that thing,”
she says, and I tell her,
“And I’m a seagull
crashing into the surf.”
It’s been raining
for hours
both of us swimming now
in uncharted waters.

 

Sherri Levine is a poet, artist, and teacher.  She lives in Portland with her partner, their son, and many backyard buddies.  Her work has been published in the Timberline Review, CALYX, Verseweavers, Willawaw, Driftwood Press, The Sun Magazine, and other journals.  She recently won the Lois Cranston Poetry Contest. In 2017, she won First Prize in the Oregon Poetry Associaton Contest. Her book, In These Voices was published by Poetry Box. sherrilevine.com

 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Print

Related

Footer

Stay In Touch

Subscribe to our mailing list for news about special events and the launch of the latest issue of Willawaw Journal.
* indicates required
We respect your privacy and will never sell or rent your personal information to third parties.

Support

Please make a donation here to support the running of Willawaw Journal. Thank you!

Support Willawaw Journal

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Submit to Willawaw Journal

Submit through Duosuma

Click to submit through Duosuma (opens in a new window/tab)

Copyright © 2023 Willawaw Journal, LLC · WordPress · site design by Yeda, LLC