Western PA by April Salzano

I love the state I’m in,
its mountains and cattle grazing
under billboards beside highways,
silos standing phallic in foliage, farmland
and stretches of nothing along ribbons
of winding roads. I count phone poles
and fields as landmarks, see the ghosts of steel
and loss of populous to warmer weather,
cattailed lakes and plenty of pine, travel
narrow bridges, salt-pocked streets in
my dogwood, draft horse of a home.

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Recently nominated for two Pushcart prizes, April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She is currently working on a memoir on raising a child with autism and several collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in journals such as Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow, and Rattle. Salzano also serves as co-editor at