Shenandoah by Alex Turissini

Shenandoah

You must have seen
how, when
the sun,
that most valuable gold token,
had finally risen,
and the shadows were hidden—
tucked under their objects like a boxer’s chin—
the valley’s luxuriant ribbon,
from mountain
to distant mountain,
shed its fog like a reptile’s skin,
and was, for a minute, a purse held open,
a pair of cupped palms,
a bowl for alms.

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Alex Turissini is a graduate of the MFA program at LSU. His poetry has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Atlanta Review, Bayou Magazine, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and elsewhere, and he has been a contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He lives and teaches in central Kentucky.