The Ekphrastic Review
  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact

Have you ever wanted, by Elizabeth Burnside

10/5/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Prentiss Dow, circa 1955. Family photograph of the poet.
​Have you ever wanted
 
to rise up on the balls of your feet lengthen
your arms and dive through silken air
backward in time curling at the last 
minute to land feet first?
 
toes then arches then ankles would sink
through sunbaked sand to tickle
at the timeless cool lying just below 
the surface your scratch on the
time-space continuum an unimportant
glitch in the geologic span of beach sands
 
there you might find your mother
barefoot on the beach posing for a picture
her face alight hands curled coquettishly 
at her chin her waist cinched in
an emphatic silver buckle
 
you might put your arm around her shoulders
and laugh and soak in the sameness
of your bodily frames your interchangeable 
parts you might drink in the scent of her skin 
salty sandy in the mexican sun
 
you might ask to meet her 
friend you might laugh some more giddy and 
weep and wonder at how you can be so close in
and so far away and know her so little and so much

Elizabeth Burnside
​

Elizabeth Burnside lives in Georgia and works in higher education.  Her recent poems have been published in the I-70 Review and Fourth River.  She finds herself returning to themes of memory and landscape in her writing.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture

    ​​Find a writer, artist, or poem, etc. by searching here:
    PLEASE SUPPORT US
    Join us on FB and Twitter!
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact