How They Lived & Red Lights Bleed Color
By Paul Ilechko
How They Lived
Red Lights Bleed Color
Red tail-lights flicker and dilate
moving with a stop-go intensity
through the potentiality
of further rain such an essence
of place a mapping of psychic
to physical and we walk together
through this same indeterminate
field fastening onto the same
American myth as lights blur
paint-spilled across the puddles
of a previous storm our hair
still wet the white lights dipping
and stretching time as our motion
blends into an automobile rhythm
slowed almost to stopping
as traffic bunches until the spring
is compressed to breaking point
and our senses are opened
to something a little like pain
and a lot like ecstasy.
Paul Ilechko is the author of the chapbooks Bartok in Winter (Flutter Press, 2018) and Graph of Life (Finishing Line Press, 2018). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including West Trade Review, As It Ought To Be, Cathexis Northwest Press, Otoliths and Pithead Chapel. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.