Jody Winer | Night Swimmers

Night Swimmers by Jody Winer. Number 5 in our A.V. Christie Series, selected by Ron Mohring.

[ Cover design: Sonia Biancalani-Levethan, fogdesign.org ]

“What a gorgeous pool of poems: sexy, elegiac, simply swimming in sensory pleasure—in love of language, the personal, and the natural world. I was transported by their skill, lyricism, wit, wisdom, and voice.”  

—Miranda Beeson, author of Wildlife

“Jody Winer’s poems slip easily between the small pleasures of how ‘joy weasels through a small crack’ and grief for the fleeting beauty of our natural world. Be uplifted by this writer’s deep observations, reflecting on themes of loss, renewal, and belonging.”

—Rosemary Clewes, author of Rain on My Skin

Publication:  November 30, 2024 [100 copies]
25 pages
ISBN 978-1-960693-30-3
$ 12.00
[ Second printing of 50 copies is now available ]

Jody Winer‘s poetry has appeared in Epoch, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, Open City, Cimarron Review, phoebe, Poet Lore, The South Carolina Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Nimrod, Mudfish, The Saint Ann’s Review, The Atlanta Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of Welcome to Guardian Angel School (Finishing Line, 2020). Raised in Florida, she lives in New York. She has worked as a librarian, writer, and dog wrangler. Visit her website at www.jodywiner.com.

Riptide

The oddly calm pocket between waves
is where a rip current takes shape.

Seduced by the view of open water,
you get trapped in that tricky corridor.

Regret like salt overflows your throat
when you think how other risks turned out.

Picture a lake and drift with the rip.
Remember you can always float.

Remember you can always float.
Picture a lake and drift with the rip.

When you think how other risks turned out,
regret like salt overflows your throat.

You get trapped in that tricky corridor
and seduced by the view of open water

where a rip current takes shape:
the oddly calm pocket between waves.

[ Thanks to The South Carolina Review for first publishing this poem. ]
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