Paul Ilechko
Sonnet From a Western State
I love the sensation of you pressed against me your skin as soft as glove we are in some other state where the nights are truly dark where land is divided by fences that cross the ocean of long grass beneath an orange moon there are no tourists here there are only machines that poison the pristine world with gasoline and smoke within this scale we can recognize our irrelevancy we are tuned into the tautness of musculature our senses the simmer of liquid after the sun rises there was frost here not long ago and a ram was trapped in the frozen stream there is a metal bridge that has rusted into the decorative an art derived by chemistry from the surging force of nature the house we are renting has six windows maybe more nobody has lived here for a long time we came here to find a place to bury our grief we turn on the fluorescent light and boil another kettle of water so many things now simplified even the coffee is instant.