The Writing of Francine Witte

Speculative Friction

“I went thin as pears, all sliced-up and see-through. I went halfway to happy. I went to a place where I don’t have to answer. I went sniff in the air. I went to the arms of another. I went bent as bones. I went to a job without a computer. Where I stand in a field and the sun wets my back. I went behind the numbers on a wristwatch. I went hundreds of miles from your eyes. I went all unmarriage and you cannot stop me. I went where your questions stop smack in the air and long before they can get to my ears. I went to before I even know you.”—Francine Witte  

By Claire Bateman, Poetry Editor

GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Hubris)—January/February 2026—New York City-based Francine Witte, a widely published flash fiction writer and poet, is the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER and a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, is just out from Cervena Barva Press. 

Mostly, Witte says her poetry arises from a place between the realms of personal experience and fiction. Truth is the essence of her poems, she says, but they take whatever flights are necessary to fulfill the needs of each poem. Some of her poems are based on the deeply personal, family and relationships, while others look at the world beyond, both in the past and future. Most important though is her concern with how to balance craft with emotion. 

Visit Witte’s website at francinewitte.com, and find her online at @francinewitte.

Death Sends Me an Email
By Francine Witte

But this was the year I was going to be young,
walk the hell out of myself, unzip my skinsuit
and Tinkerbell the globe. I really don’t have time
for death, I say to my computer and send Death’s email
to the trash. Besides if it’s important, Death can always
text. Or better yet, call. The way my sister called that last
time, though I didn’t pick up the phone. No way to know
it was the last chance I’d have. But see, Death is that kind
of asshole, lurking behind curtains and jumping out—surprise!
Other times winking and winking the way he did my mother’s
last agony year. No way to know what’s on Death’s fickle
mind, and so I fish out the email and open it. Turns out to be
spam from a window company—Death to bad insulation—
in the subject line and I just misread. I sigh and settle back.
I can be young some other time. Travel some other year.
And then, I think of Death sitting at his own computer,
clearing out the backlog. I can only hope my name is
in some kind of file marked get to this later, the kind of email
he’d fuss over the wording, fidget every comma, maybe
show it to his wife for feedback, rewrite it a couple
of hundred times before he presses send. 

Published in Concho River Review and Some Distant Pin of Light.

Where Did You Go?
By Francine Witte

I went thin as pears, all sliced-up and see-through. I went halfway to happy. I went to a place where I don’t have to answer. I went sniff in the air. I went to the arms of another. I went bent as bones. I went to a job without a computer. Where I stand in a field and the sun wets my back. I went behind the numbers on a wristwatch. I went hundreds of miles from your eyes. I went all unmarriage and you cannot stop me. I went where your questions stop smack in the air and long before they can get to my ears. I went to before I even know you. That spot in the morning about to begin, that curl of a mouth turning into a smile, that moment a flower opens up like a hand.

Published in Unbroken Journal, Mackinaw Review, Best Microfiction 2025, and Some Distant Pin of Light.

Other Summers
By Francine Witte

We were wolves then, doing
the wander ponder, our hunter

hearts pulling us through the forest
night. We needed to eat adventure

and so, we would nosepush anything
lying still. We would roll it over

and roll it over and when it did move,
even a little, we would tear into its skin, 

our teeth and tongues, a hurricane of need,
the only light coming from the moon, 

and a sash of milkstars. The only sound
the whisper of a wind in our throats

slowing back down to a breath. 

Published in Main Street Rag and Some Distant Pin of Light.

Our Star
By Francine Witte

is really the sun, and billions of miles
away, maybe someone is wishing on it,
wishing for a last desperate chance at love.
But here I am, on this beach where people
stretch out like dead exclamation points,
tanning themselves to our star.  Nearby,
a wave breaks.  Pebble and salt and soapy
foam. I wonder how far that wave could
have gone without the beach to stop it?
I pick up a grain of sand, infinitesimal,
but this is how our start might look to that
billion-mile lover. I picture him a human
wave, aching to break past his own beach-locked
future, finally able to get whatever he could
wish for on some distant pin of light.

Published in Some Distant Pin of Light.

In My Poems, Sometimes I Have Children
By Francine Witte

Daughters mostly, because I know
their routines. Flatirons and tampons.
To invent boys, I would need to ask
questions, learn to talk sports.
In my poems, sometimes,
my children appreciate
me. Pretend daughter Fiona,
says things like Mom, if it weren’t
for you, I’d be living in an essay
for crying out loud. She’s right.
If I were a made up child, I
would prefer the crinoline
swish of a simile, so much kinder
than the hard angles of non-fiction.
A pretend son wouldn’t be so generous.
He would say he’s a lie I tell
myself to feel better about what
I haven’t done. I would laugh at him.
Pretend mothers can do that.
Then I would sit him down
and tell him my poems aren’t lies at all.
They’re just the truths that didn’t happen.

Published in Kentucky Review, Not All Fires Burn the Same (first place winner of Slipstream Press Chapbook Competition, 2016).

Cervena Barva Press Book Launch for Some Distant Pin of Light, by Francine Witte.