Simon Perckik

Cinq dessèrts anonymes

 

You still use rain, breathe in

till your mouth is full 

–you can’t jump clear, grow huge

 

on a sky that has no holes, no Earth 

–what did you say, what words

were helped along, holding on to the others

 

all the way down, facing the sun

though who know where this thirst

first as ashes, now your own

 

is kept warm for the whispers

not needed anymore –only rain

as necessary as bending down

 

comes this close and your voice

more and more feeble, bathes you

lowers you, covers you.

*
 

What did they underline, first to last

these skid marks never had the time

though nothing you need remains 

 

–the road is used to it, paved

the way rock climbers test for pain

and each handhold eases in more dirt

 

as if the chalk comes in black

erupts from some invisible callus

that only wants things to move

 

are important –you blame the Earth

and in its place your arms

for miles with no one left to find. 

*
 

This cup doesn’t care anymore

says yes because it’s easier

though another spoon already struck 

 

–you pour and craters everywhere

overflow the way ancient tides

have learned to cool, survived

 

returning as the same breeze

you hold on to from inside

kept damp and among the pieces. 

*
 

A single page, barely room

tries, almost fits its envelope

the way splinters already there

 

know exactly where your hand

was trying to reach –at the end

her name, all else is doubt

 

though once face down even you

will stare at the wood, half table

half crate leaving a place 

 

–the letter will get used to you, stay

festering between your fingers 

through no fault on their own.

*
 

You have nothing to say, point

and in a straight line

each stone gives up its home

 

finds a small place for the Earth

that lays down alongside 

the way moonlight still caresses

 

the name that fired all stone

with shade on both sides –you point

and though it’s thirst

 

you have no mouth, nothing

for these flowers bending over

the meadow you opened then closed.

 

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in DM, Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection, The Family of Man Poems, is published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2021. For more information including free e-books and his essay, “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities”, please visit his website at simonperchik.com

 

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

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