5 POEMS
Simon Perchik
*
Struggling against more turbulence
this broken concrete can’t shut down
and cool –your shadow’s too old
leans down and though the wall
falls closer and closer
it tries to rest your face
–a sleeping face
still circling where your forehead
mingles with rocks and weeds
–even your grave goes to pot
lets anyone point at it
as if sunlight could urge you
to spread out inside a sky
that has no days left, is lifted
face to face with the ground.
*
An everyday rain is not enough
but even so these strangers
walk past your grave
and below the black umbrellas
cling to each other
as that homeless cry
slowly closing around you
and though you can’t hear it
the sky is already dark, sags
and under the small rocks
that come here empty handed
–such a rain loses count
is no longer in pieces
could comfort you
remember its darkness.
*
This path could be its echo
clings to your exhausted cry
and once around one shoulder
climbs, covers the Earth
already those footsteps
mourners will use
follow as emptiness
and not answer anymore
or look :this path
coming back with stars
that no longer listen
over and over.
*
And though it’s dark these dead
still remember how every stone
smells from dirt that never leaves
becomes a sky without an evening
they can hold in one hand
and not the other –they call out
with valleys :cries that have forgotten
to rise far off as sunlight
and trembling –these dead want snow
side by side, already flowers
and lowered, opened at the throat
and no longer breathing.
*
You show up late as usual
need more darkness
though you wait
the way each star
smells from dirt
and her eyelids
–the mouth you return to
is already weeds
worn down by the silence
that’s lost its balance
can’t escape
and won’t let go
–some nights
further than others
smaller and smaller.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Osiris Poems published by box of chalk, 2017. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.
