My country was rock and wind
and a river that had forced its pathway
through the low country leaving
behind like an absence the memory
of mountains as it persevered
on its way to the distant sea dividing
the land it crossed as it shallowed
and widened my own memories
a kind of religion now prayers to
a landscape that hold me in an iron grip
no matter where I travel no matter
how far from that country of coal
and cloud-covered sky a flickering
cascade of monochrome intensity
that melts and is re-formed as glass
filled to the very brim with a heavy
brown ale foam frothing over the rim
the girls at their tables with elbows linked
the boys propped up against the bar
or flicking through the mysteries
of the jukebox for that certain specific
rhythm leaving reluctantly at night’s end
into the cold blast of a south-easterly
and the faint scent of saltwater and iodine.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 4.
Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, Bear Review, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Laurel Review. His book Fragmentation and Volta was published in 2025 by Gnashing Teeth Publishing. He reads for Marrow Magazine.
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