"I'm Not Telling" by Ellis Elliot

I’m Not Telling
(Martha)

how I’d heard
from Granny that Rebels would come,
how from practice the children curled
quick under the floorboards and quieted
when they came.

Not Telling
how I’d seen
scarlet moons for eyes, men whittled down
like saplings, and wild, full-flung madness.

Not Telling
how I learned
to camouflage horror, adjust my torn dress,
cover bruises, and lace my secrets tight.

ellis elliott

Ellis Elliott is a writer, ballet teacher, and facilitator of online writing groups, called Bewilderedness Writing. She has a blended family of six grown sons and lives with her husband and feisty dog, Mabel, in Juno Beach, FL. She has an MFA from Queens University, is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, and an editor/workshop teacher for The Dewdrop contemplative journal. She has been published in Signal Mountain Review, Literary Mama, OPEN: Journal of Arts and Letters, Plainsongs Poetry Magazine, Sierra Nevada Review, Women of Appalachia Project Anthology, Delmarva Review, The Rail, Spotlong Review, Euphony Journal and others. Her first chapbook, Break in the Field, was a finalist for the Two Sylvia’s Press, Wilder Poetry Book Prize, and was published in 2023 with Devil’s Party Press.

Headshot: Jon David Stroud

Photo Credit: Staff