Current
Issue
Volume 12.1
Elijah Burrell
—
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
The snow falls like bright cotton
sheets swell and ripple
on clotheslines across
the America found deep
inside us.
It moves like a dress resuscitated
by wind—swirling piano-white-spread,
waving in wet air—the one I slid down
her shoulders once
or twice.
The kids throw on their boots, the mothers
pull out their phones to post pictures of the
first snow. Flakes fall on our heads, float in the air,
like unexpected company, the ones
we’ve missed.
Elijah Burrell is the author of the poetry collections Skies of Blur (EastOver Press, 2024), TROUBLER (Aldrich Press, 2018), and The Skin of the River (Aldrich Press, 2014). In 2010, he received the Jane Kenyon Scholarship at Bennington College, where he earned his MFA in Writing and Literature at Bennington’s Writing Seminars. His work has appeared in publications such as AGNI, The Hopkins Review, North American Review, Southwest Review, The Rumpus, Sugar House Review, and Measure, and has been featured on the Slowdown podcast. He was named a 2019 Claudia Emerson Scholar for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Since 2012, he has taught creative writing and literature at Lincoln University, where he serves as Professor of English and received the 2023 Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education.
elijahburrell.com
