Simon Perchik

Five Poems

 

 

The same dingy elevator

not in service

though to wish is the easy part

--once its doors are sealed

the gust likes it in the back

and you make good time

cut the sky in half :both doors

opening the way your foot

fell suddenly between

 

--you stumbled in front a butterfly

that no longer moves, its wings

folded over, changing again

into an evening spread out

from the bottom up

reaching across a road

that stays dark more than the others

lifts its dirt to your shoulders

and along the helpless buttons

lets it fall, bathing you

floor by floor, any day now.

 

 

*

 

 

Going somewhere with you

is all it holds on to

--a single blanket

 

the kind the dead carry

over them

--you can't tell the difference

 

though you wish there were

--to warm is all it knows

and you are led under

 

till your mouth opens

looking for her

--to kiss, empty her throat

 

with your own --on faith

you stretch out

bring back to the room

 

her damp scent

tied at one end

and not the other

 

--with both eyes closed

you show her her picture

without thinking.

 

 

*

 

 

The guy with the squeegee

has no idea how cold dust is

or why it's taking so long

 

for her reflection to cover the glass

with sirens, whistles, more ice

--he's nervous bathing the mannequin

 

half naked, half with water

fresh from your heart

--you're in the way! wedged

 

between her motionless mouth

and the shadow that is yours

--no matter how easy enough

 

you don't touch the window

ready to break open

wipe her breasts dry.

 

 

*

 

 

Both hands and this ink

the way the dead are sheltered

--you fill the pen

 

with slowly behind

loosen those tiny stones

you still drink from :you write

 

as if this shovel

had carried away the Earth

into moonlight where mourners

 

appear underneath your fingertips

as words and rain and lips

--there's always a first time

 

--the ink would overflow

rush through the lines

left helpless on this page

 

--you hold on --why not!

--already a fountain

digging for the sky

 

its unfinished grave

and every evening

is an everywhere her heartbeat.

 

 

*

 

 

This pot-luck maple

--a baby! and already

leaf by leaf collapsing

 

and though you bathe in ice water

your only chance

is from the silence

 

found in absolute zero

whose undermining monotone

is quieted the way a millstone

 

half streams, half churchyards 

half that sweet blossom

every child is born as

 

carries around on its shoulders

the unfolding whisper

for heavier blankets, woolens --noise

 

ages everything! this tiny tree

trying to gag the Earth

with dead leaves and hillsides

 

--with its molten core

bubbling through the branches

and nothing is cold enough.

 

 

 

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Osiris, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013).  For more information, free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.