If ever someone attempted to strike fear into your heart,
I sense disappointment would follow. The traces you leave behind
prove your valor: back torn open, wings emerging. You fly
toward a setting sun, an aroma crisp and bitterly sweet in your wake.
Though men may try questioning you as they quake 
in your presence, you remain untouchable. The sweetness of cherry
couldn’t satisfy you; you sought the tangy taste of acid and reminded 
the woman following behind you, waiting to do life’s most vulnerable deed,
that she, too, could know what it means to be invincible, if only she lifted
the bacteria-laden stick sitting atop the aluminum dispenser, if only she 
took a risk and raised each tiny organism you left behind to her lips.

Alicia Swain is a feminist poet and author living in Richmond, VA. Her debut poetry collection, Steel Slides and Yellow Walls, releases in August of 2025 with Belle Isle Books. Her work appears in publications such as The Vehicle, Half and One, and The Closed Eye Open. She can be found on her website at aliciaswain.com, on Bluesky as aliciamswain.bsky.social, and on Instagram as @aliciamswain.

Header photography and artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson