Outback by Paul Ilechko

Outback

Lean, vulture, wing-flexing.
The buttery grease of goat
stinking beneath your tendril
flight. Encirclement gathering.
The torn darkness of yurts and thorns.
The empty miles of salmon
and lavender, the murky
infinite plain. Spiders’ webs
at sunset, glittering crimson.
Lean, vulture. The barking
of coyote, the steady tramp
of civilization, the impossible
absence of water. A salt-stricken
world of houses shaped from mud.
The rendering of the gum tree.
Lean, vulture.

by Paul Ilechko

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Editor’s Note: Startling imagery belies the cliché that a picture is worth a thousands words—in this poem, the opposite is true.