Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection, The Osiris Poems, was published by box of chalk in 2017. For more information, including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities”, please visit his website at simonperchik.com.
ONE
This handrail sealed, kept hot
for engine oil and holding on
looking for help
though not yet into the turn
as your hand on your shadow
bolted down at the water’s edge
–you make the descent
the way a hidden stream
stretches out and the ground
lets go, cooling your fingers
in drops, in a heaviness
in more and not more.
TWO
Shielding your lips this stone
knows all about winds
living in caves, began
as dust then kept in place
neither mornings or kisses
though there’s still the pieces
a grave here, here more and you
trying to remember how dirt
became your cheeks, caressed
as if rain is just another word
–your only sky left in the open
for its handfuls and hidden flowers
that have forgotten how to breathe
are devouring the mud, mountains
and this ritual water swept away.
THREE
Star by star you add a word
the way the Earth still darkens
from the bottom up, lets you hold on
keep it from shedding just its light
and your fingers –you write
as if this stone was already black
and step by step your child-like name
pinned on to become its last breath
while you steer the lettering back home
leave spaces for this iron waterfall
to point from under some mountainside
at whispers that no longer move
smothered by braids, shoulders, kisses
that are yours, oceans, winds, mornings
blacker than this dirt and lost.
FOUR
You no longer bathe
though a cold rain
flows through one arm
grieves the way each river
carries off its slow descent
with a deadly hold
–around these gravestones
your smelly leather jacket
still arranged so its sleeves
spread-eagle, are packed
with a sky already darkened
by the more and more feathers
that have no heading yet
and your shoulders without hope
weightless over the water.
FIVE
These stones too steep, cling
the way the overcast side by side
lets through one star –in the open
you devour its incinerating light
and distances though the grass
has just been mowed and watered
knows all about how the night sky
stands back, erect, righteous
between each grave and winter
where you lean over to drink
–always the same cold air
two mornings at a time, and choke.
