Black Swans: A Poem for Voices by Katharyn Howd Machan
“Black Swans: A Poem for Voices” by Katharyn Howd Machan We are the black swans, the women who swim. Who fly at night. Who are the night. Our golden feet touch quiet water, skim shining surface, plunge deep to make currents in dark weeds. We come and go. We know each other’s names, each other’s dreams; we dream each other. Dream the flight past ragged moon, past singing stars, and it comes true. Dream the...
Coming in Second by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
“Coming in Second” by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal Body chilled by years of neglect, my twin lies in a hospital bed trying to grasp how she’s come to this. The sum of my fears she’s the one person I dread I could be, save for some kink in our link of genetic fiber. Struggling not to catch her death of cold, I’ve steered clear of her notion that our birth was not just conceptual happenstance. Yet at times, I find...
Unity Orders by Kate Simonian
“Unity Orders” by Kate Simonian Hot stuff. Just-what-the-doctor-Orders. Five-foot-ten at twelve-and-a-half years old, with a body to be reckoned with, a body with curves we had just learned to describe as convex. Unity would have been memorable for her name alone—a sentence unto itself, one teacher said—but over the summer she’d developed a larger-than-life sex drive to boot. Libido had left her crooked. Her...
She Whispers Korean in My Ear by Tanya Ko Hong
“She Whispers Korean in My Ear” by Tanya Ko Hong We were drinking homemade wine when my blonde friend told me Once I had a Korean boyfriend— his mother hated me but how I loved her food… She knew a bad Korean word— Whisper in my ear, I said Jajee, she said and her face bloomed red as a bong soong ah— my face cooled sub zero. Only a whore can use that word— horny women dirty women That’s not a bad word, I...
Sista-Girl by Louise McKinney
“Sista-Girl” by Louise McKinney “. . .and in between it’s nicotine and not much heart to fight. . .” —Sonny Burke She and me we complain rarely but sometimes softly and then only to each other. So as not to get on anyone’s last nerve feeling like—maybe just feel like giving up the fight, or if strapped for cash could just hit the jukes for some jazz. One night I might mutter to her (matter-a-fact) Girl, those...
Art is my taste for freedom. I drown day and day until I pick up my paintbrush once again. So, somehow, I can tell myself that you’re not stuck in this room and that the canvas is the key.
Nina Salvadoré
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Seabed or ocean floor? What is the difference?
Submit Your Art & Writing to WAVES
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We meet each other in waves of light, waves of vision, waves of sound–a studio beyond boundaries.
Creative sisters, shoulder to shoulder, shore to shore.
This time, there is no setting our art aside. This time, there is no setting our art asunder. This is our time.
December 6-7 | oneness | noon to noon EST | dip in and out throughout this twenty-four hour wave
Recent From Waves
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seabed or ocean floor Sep 26, 2025
