Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter. He was born in Barnsley in the north of England, and attended Royal Holloway College, University of London, for his Bachelor’s degree.  He now lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, Southword, Permafrost, and The Inflectionist Review. He has also published several chapbooks, including “Pain Sections” from Alien Buddha Press.  His first full-length book is scheduled for 2025 publication by Gnashing Teeth Publishing.   

Too Large

She came home to find him sprawled across
the bed     asleep within the house that had always
been too large for them     a garden torn from 
a field that used to be a farm     seeded with the rotten
bones of ancient livestock     she spoke to him
but there was no response     he merged into the pattern
of the quilt in much the way old corpses merged into
the roots and tendrils of a field     overgrown before
the topsoil was sold for profit     who am I     she
asked him     I tremble when I see you here     so
still and silent     your jeans and shirt so neatly 
folded on the hard-backed chair     the bulge inside
your cotton underwear     we are trapped here 
she continued     surrounded by the ashes of 
a world that we will never understand     if you are 
dead I’ll bury you myself     and you can feed 
the roots of trees we planted to replace the ones 
ripped out by the land’s developers     and I will 
sing for you     old songs composed in a previous
century     and then I’ll spend my life in silence
until our house collapses     with that she left
the bedroom     and made her way back to 
the garden     watching the gradual setting of 
the sun as it descended into an orange flare of light. 

Light of Morning

The light in the room echoed green from
the foliage of the old oak     and we spoke
to each other with so many misunderstandings

we were somewhere in eastern Europe
we had crossed so many borders to be there
and we were finally learning to understand

our differences     to comprehend the gaps between
our bodies as well as the ways in which they
could slide together     we needed to be

a mystery     not a puzzle     and we discovered
that it was better to fall asleep apart and wake
together     than vice-versa 

                                              when we were
children we were out of control     we grew
up in a green place of orchards and cemeteries 

we could smell the farms on our way to school
and the wind raged across the high plateau
on days when it blew from the west     but we

learned the ways of landscape     and how to move 
softly     these skills later serving us well     bodies
coming together in the golden glow of morning. 

White Flowers

There are white flowers in a vase
on the kitchen table     that reflect
in some way the magnolia 
in the back garden     it’s a formal
relationship that is addressed 
through multiple factors 
but also just the goddam purity of it
and the gratitude we feel when 
we remember the storm 
and consider that the tree still stands
and the house still stands     and we never
had to navigate a drowning 
neighborhood by canoe     we never
had to drive oxen in circles around
a grinding wheel to feed our family 
or feed our neighbors’ families
we have the privilege to focus on 
form rather than content     or context
and can fly at will to another country
or continent     Tokyo or London
comfortable in our upgraded seats
a glass of wine     and fresh flowers
and the ability to sleep peacefully
for as long as this journey might take.