An old woman who could no longer About the Author 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 Free State Review. His book “Fragmentation and Volta” was published in 2025 by Gnashing Teeth Publishing. He reads for Marrow Magazine.
Woman of the Sky
afford to live in a house
her breathing rapid but unstable
as she blended into the background
of the park where she now lived
ragged edges and melting colors
resembling a late de Kooning
her husband had failed to return
from his last sea voyage
almost thirty years previously
she still dreamed of the darkness
of his world beneath the turbulent waves
it seemed to remind her of the moors
of eastern Lancashire
where the land stabbed violently
into the Pennine foothills
sectioned by ice-cold streams
which bathed the bones of dead sheep
and the ugly terraced streets
of violent youth and drunken misogyny
she had left behind so long ago
today the blue of her sky
was defaced by the dirty impasto
of cumulus thickness
shadows intermittently taking
the sunlight that was her only joy
the arc of her life dissipating
into the vapor of
a late morning’s desiccation.
