Kim Kenyon

Posted byswim meet lit magPosted inUncategorized
the quickening

[Note: this piece’s formatting is best viewed on a larger screen]

how true to lie / suspended in motion beneath soft friction of flannelette / leg braced against rib. pulse in a pocket sheets of rain folded into tin / snug slant angle pressed between gravity’s damp / breaths and brine cellular swell recalls nights at sea / faces in membrane envelopes peaks prising rain. beyond rain / memory pools in crevices salt swallows bone, luminescent / embryonic thoughts form toes splay muscled waves / rolling across a dream gale becomes / a quiver, my vessel slips its shell / across shiver of stars tides murmur / towards morning, backlit binnacle flashes / sun, a palm warming blood and iron / round belly, thin flannelette hull divides / bowl of our bodies: worlds / cupping dawn. i hold a heaviness of corded rope / catching flesh on cleats of sky the only friction: a closed eye parting horizons

Kim (she/her) was once a sailor but is now knee-deep in the chaos and poetry of raising two tiny children. After being selected as an ’emerging writer’ by the Museum of Brisbane last year, she began slipping minutes from midnight’s margins to write. Since then, her poetry has been shortlisted for the 2025 Calanthe Poetry Prize and longlisted for the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Jacaranda, Write Your Heart Out Anthology, QPoetry Chapbook Showcase, and is forthcoming in The Anthology of Flight. Kim writes from unceded Jinibara Country.

Published by swim meet lit mag

swim meet lit mag is a young online publication based in Brisbane, Australia. Swim meets bring people together; swim meet lit mag seeks to offer an accessible space to read and publish all kinds of creative work from around the world, with a particular focus on local emerging writers. Now in its third year of operation, swim meet lit mag plans to continue expanding its catalogue, which is, and will always be, free to access. Each issue is framed by a swimming-related theme, to which the responses are always wonderfully surprising and diverse. 

Leave a comment