Elijah Burrell

Georgia White, Chicago

I bet her breath smelt like childhood when Daddy

would pull gray ash out the wood stove, his chin

lotioned in whiskey. The sequined dress wrapped round

her hips like a hound’s wet mouth works a bone.

And the way she looked when she sang “Daddy Let

Me Lay it On You,” as if she was grindin coffee,

givin and gettin. That microphone screamin

gleamin like a jailhouse spotlight. The speakers

drip honey, her feet tappin ground like a tom

cat’s tail when he smell a little fuzz in heat.

Her eyelids tremble, smilin cause she knows

I’m hers like every soul in this hole. Georgia

starts shakin all night, all night, all night long.

Author Bio

Elijah Burrell is currently working toward his MFA in the Bennington Writing Seminars. His poetry has been published in The Sugar House Review, Muscle & Blood, Swink Magazine, The Country Dog Review, Blast Furnace, The Honey Land Review, Under One Sun, and forthcoming in The Penwood Review. Burrell was the recipient of the 2009 Cecil A. Blue Award in Poetry, and a finalist in the 2010 Pinch Poetry Contest. He resides in Jefferson City, Missouri with his wife and two little girls.