Simon Perchik

Anonymous Poetry

 

 

They have learned to feast

the way all blooms die out

return hours later, warmed

 

and under her breasts the low light

nourishes your fingers with shade

beginning again as twins –two tongues

 

two throats gutting each breath

and below it one mouth

is filled with the other

 

that has no place else to go

weighs so little, pulled close

for the flowers that have nothing to do

 

with your hands barely in place

grown huge from covering the weeks

the days, years –with your eyes shut 

 

–with this dampness taught not to sleep

push nothing away –with each hand

overflowing its banks and closing.

 

*

 

This stone bending over you

bulges with moons, craters

brought closer for more darkness

 

enlarged the way its arch

spreads out and gradually

a second horizon helps you track

 

how far before each night

gives up its faith in steppingstones

covers your grave

 

as if a footbridge this smooth

is as simple as turning a corner

hidden with hours and distances.

 

*

 

So there will be no distraction

you shower at night, your hands

kept cold as the same sound

 

snow breaks off bit by bit

whose only defense is to melt

and rock is now so rare 

 

–the pebbles you saved

you bathe, hold under, hide

for hours in falling water

 

though there’s no light left

or the cry from your arms

around and around in pieces

 

half rain, half the sky

crushed against this frost

no longer burning or a place.               

                   

*

 

Before taking root this darkness

was hollow –you could hear its echo

become a second sun, half moonlight

 

half pole to pole as a single ocean

drained softly at night –at what depth

did it bend the Earth toward evenings

 

lengthen them, let your hand curve

the way sea birds still lift one wing

into morning and home –at what garden

 

was this shoreline born, leaving the sea

to itself, listening for flowers, islands

and in your arms its sadness.

 

*

 

It’s winter inside this string

kept white –on its own

to put your heart back

 

though each goodbye

returns to the surface

as ice and the sudden glow

 

that tightens knot after knot

the way this box was covered

with corners and step by step

 

and along a single finger

the blood you think is yours

is endless and sent.

 

 

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere, including DM. His most recent collection is The Osiris Poems published by boxofchalk, 2017. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. 

 

To view one of his interviews please follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8