In the Dirt
She’s happiest in the dirt. Watch her smile
as she trims the rose bushes.
See how little she cares for filth under her
fingernails, for thorns that scratch her arms.
Let her take a corner for a mulch pile.
Buy her two kinds of secateurs,
one for the living branch, one for dead wood.
The clean wind blows her hair, the black
soil enriches her life: let it then be so.
Create a garden for two; and thus, we grow.
Black Angel
I climbed the mountain to see the hawks fly over
on their annual migration south. But all I saw
was a passel of vultures, crouched and wizened on a
dead tree stump, languidly stretching out their wings.
At least their putrid stink did not reach me at that distance.
Unlike the time I cycled past the farm where a dead
deer still lay, half in, half out of a tiny pond, encircled
by a dozen of those red-faced buzzards.
I slowed to get a better look, but then the stench
arrived. The creature closest to me unwound itself,
six feet at least from tip to tip, unleashing from
its black angel gloom a terrible extra dose of carrion funk.
Paul Ilechko has always lived by a river, although he sometimes dreams of forests and mountains. He currently lives in Lambertville, NJ with his girlfriend and a cat. Paul has had poetry published recently by Dash Literary Journal, Pomona Valley Review, Full of Crow, MockingHeart Review and Slag Review, among others.
Superfine!
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