*

And the Earth leans against you

from inside, starts its turn

hand over hand --you empty each box

slowly, smoothing the sides

then once it’s dark

begin to dig for air

and wait for the corner

half cardboard, half taking you in

and no one home though here you are

opening a door the way every star

smells from dying winds and grass

--you unpack, thinner and thinner

as if the air is losing heart

bending its climb and doors

no longer by the hundreds.

*

This shadow half iron, half

reaching out, breaking loose

--with both hands the hands

that no longer come for you

and in their place the dirt

grows back together

--in such a wound you die

in two places at the same time

make a path for the sky

you remember and underneath

--nothing but your arms

tearing each other apart

--handful by handful there’s room

for a little more shadow

a little more you can say.

*

You wash this floor the way winter

waits for its ice to stir

show more interest in coming closer

and the drowned --what bubbles up

is bottom sand though you drift

and further out more water

unable to dry so far from home

--a single drop by drop

wipes down the world and longing

--it’s how you sleep

leaking from your pores

this side then that breaking open

holding on to each other and now

without shape, making it through 

as surfaces and nearer.

*

The rain climbing along your wrist

makes it seem easy --you breathe

through your hand, for two

--it helps to wet your eyelids

look where water has taken root

in pieces, knows how to grieve

the way your arm throws out

its still warm breezes and each morning

heavier --dirt learned this long ago

still fills your mouth with the word

for sister so nothing

can break without thirst

or blossom or with your hand

crushing you for more tears

and morning after morning.

*

You must enjoy the risk

swallowing rainwater, splashing

so close to the ground

wait alone for the train

you know is never in time

can’t rub the tracks dry

or keep you from leaning too far

--it’s the chance you take, wave

--sometimes waves, sometimes for nothing.

---

*

Dorian's lips in ruins

and the slow song

that never catches up --her son

not yet named, almost weightless

born with a bone already broken

and his arm left to heal.

Perhaps he will remember

how sometimes even the sea

needs more room, even that tiny hand

wanting to take hold the world

--perhaps with a name, made whole

by a sound that left some far coast

shipwrecked, to make an offer.

The doctors say but what

do they know about untested currents?

He needs to be called! to be joined

and to her cries

his unfolding heart.

*

And on this table

another chance :the loaf

whose grain last Fall was crushed

--with one hand! you could hear

the Earth breaking open to cool

become brittle, then bone

then meat from a lamb, warm winds

and one promise more.

Perhaps it's enough --Just Esther

clearly, slowly, your name

with just one finger reaching out

one small breath spelling your name

softly on these still warm crumbs

--on the rickety wood table

centered in this room :an axle

creaking with straw and salt

and that one word

as if all your words and this lamb

come back, the table whole, fresh

already growing leaves, filling the room

with skies and branches reaching everywhere.

*

Four in the morning and the dog

wants to talk about her dream

afraid to stop in the middle

--the barking smells from salt

wants to be brushed and the sky

made ready, shown to someone

before morning arrives --I calm her fur

to lay down the way an echo

is trained to retrieve, waving

to something I can't see. It's no use.

I need a glass, a spoon

but the tea no matter how near

darkens with each goodbye --I need

to set the dog adrift :an island

on all sides left facing a great sea

warning me where sleep is treacherous

and the mist, louder and louder

wanting to come home.

*

Each Halloween and lifting the door

I back away in horror, throwing apples

--the dead are always hungry

but on this night already icing over

they come without moving their lips

--even these sweets smell from ashes

from snow burning to the ground and you

are water now, wandering door to door

the way mountainsides sometimes forget

and nothing can be heard

except this thin waxpaper, unfolded

crackling in my hands.

For this first frost

I set a trap :your grave

as if some candy bar once unsealed

would flow again --with each step

I'm falling through the Earth

overtaking name by name.

You did not come tonight, the dirt

must still be warm from fruit

and sandwiches --at the door

with one hand out

I tell something to eat

not to forget where it eats

where it sleeps and in half.

*

Again a lull across my cheek

another line that can't be crossed

--each side the wound

mourners in tight hats

trek single file, invisible

--with one precise somersault

the surgeon lifts from my face

where once your kiss growing monstrous

was half around the sun --one cheek

asleep behind some sheet

created from the light

from singing in a circle.

You hear the blade

longing to reach my lips

bend from holding on --end over end

the way a juggler works the high wire

reaches out for wings

that can't stop spinning.

You would think this hospital staff

and even the costumes

come from Ringling Brothers

from that over and over dream

where the sun now larger than ever

is lowered with you

with the marching songs, the elephant

balanced on a balloon, hind legs midair

reaching out, trying to cross over

from that ground that never lets go

the way an acrobat still practices

for that flight and the sun

each night deeper, deeper --even you

hear some nurse tighten the wide strap

--with a flourish, testing for safety

and the sky leap off

to the side, used to it.

*

As if with some cord :her hand

taking hold, slowly

and the child inside

almost moves --she tugs

kneels closer to the lid

the way a weightlifter

tightens that foothold breath

--the box won't budge, its boards

soften, become weightless

and the moonlight --she pulls

from a riverbed

and under the varnished grain

her fingers dead from thirst

are falling off the Earth

--this thin box erupting into stone

overtaking birds, their wings

set in mountainside and evening

till her hand worn down, breaks

in half --on her knees

sifting the rocks :the children.

*

I dig this grave

the way migrating birds

remember the exact site

-the spade pecking at itself

till all that’s left to eat

is the dampness in its bones.

It took this crow forever, first

to darken, then

to fly  but I am still afraid

keep widening this hole

not sure -all night each star

returning to the same spot

and this blade somehow heavier.

I lay down a bird

that still has wings

has a place you can use -the air

is not so safe anymore

and the dirt against its body

already growing into light

into some great mountain range

and these few feathers around it waist

looking all over for you

-you are always falling into rivers

-what you breathe now

comes from these shallow graves

emptied then filled -this crow

with its back to the sky

and no room left on Earth.

---

*
Your shoulders in overhead sweeps
pulling you through the dark water
--you're turning the Earth
from its center, eyes closed
as if you still need the soft, white pillows
the nurses left at your sides.

It still snows, it rains
and my eyes too are useless
without some glass bent over to comfort them
--we can't look up, blindfolded
like a man about to be shot
his eyes kept empty
as if they could reach out
fill his ears with riversides

--what you hear is this Mason jar
and the fresh mound
these berries will feed
--they're sweetening the winter now
and the fields grow fat, peaceful

--you hear its jar from the middle
and the dirt that must know by now
still sniffs my hand
streaming with blood
and the fingers too are missing.





*
With tiny cuts --in daylight yet
these cardboard matches
--halfway through a dog begins

cries as if it's counting down
with numbers --its voice
more and more colder than yours

and this ceiling blown off, the crew
opening a door in the floor
to warm the street below

--with each match a great heat
is sucked into the middle
into an ancient longing

--you offer the sun a twin
that would survive, a gentle light
endless, washing over the Earth

over your fingers each year
lower, stroking what could be
a dog's bark and the matches

breaking on every wall
for windows that fall
through the holes and your arms.






*
Even its glue, another sheet
lets go, turning its back
by leaning over, headfirst, a small splash

held till the burn marks show
--without a beach or the soft breast
your child is filling with feathers

with just before sleep --this page
on the way home, crawling in sand
and your hands still fastened

soaking in hot milk, carried
as if they were written down at night
one wearing through the other.





*
As spiders will stroke from their body
my beard cold, gray and this fly
not sure what's happening

--under the soap my hairs lay still
point to some snowstorm
to the mountaineers chipping a ledge

for pulleys and the lines reel out
tightening across my lips --the fly
turns back --my lips must be that landmark

still red, pulled from the heart
as shadows are still handed down
to the lost and the fly, quiet as it can

looks over its shoulder --even the Earth
needs to turn from the sun and every Fall
apples guide the looping blade

just under their skin --this Fall
with one hand on my forehead
but the fly can't jump clear, my beard

covered with blood --for a while
--even after I die my hair will grow
to finish something in time --for days

like the thread cutting glass on the table
--over and under, pulled straight
ties down my heart, for later.






*
Barely coating the corner trim
this dark green must think it's summer
and pinecones shimmering
till the knots too show through

--even the air, back and forth
till a thin breeze
warms the wood, covers your arm
still coming out the ground
and opening outward

--this paint will take years
dries the way I move to a new place
--first, it can be sure this house
will be pulled by a river
that's been forgotten
then slowly opens the sky and around you.




*
And the dead can't wait, they crouch
when you shut the lid --it's easier
to remember in the dirt

how their first cry, being born
and the sky hiding outside, caught hold
though the cold would last forever

--their jaws still ache --they remember
their first breath, then another
that weighs almost nothing

unable to land on Earth, higher
and higher and the eyes they leave behind
pulling --you can hear them

one by one, all the dead
headlong in some great cascade
an avalanche :heartbeats full throttle

on edge --another powerdive
with stones cracking open
breathing again --the dead

can't wait, want more height, cold air
to rush the heart again
--they still pull up on their knees

--they can't forget --in the dirt
all coffins take on a cockpit smell
complete with the uncontrollable song

from small flowers making more air
sending up a moon, then another
that weighs almost nothing.

---

*
They need so little sleep
and the night too is homeless
following -every minute spent
stomping, setting traps :each footstep
and near a window
its small whisper lights up
lures the darkness closer

-they learn to limp, grind one shoe
catching fire -they're taught
to lag, leaning against
as a child just born
reaches ahead for lips
not sure who is breathing

-they will strike one leg
till its wings fall out, the ground
falling out, covered with footsteps
with galaxies and mornings to come
-all this emptiness taking hold
compacting the once a nothing spore
and the Earth already off balance
-they make themselves cold.

Who imagines a first cry
could grow into such a darkness
-from one vague window
all the winters :all this wandering
to touch what was a whisper
and now invisible, bending into sunlight
and goes on singing.


*
Even across a table
the separated miles
-everything I touch becomes dark
becomes stars
and struggling through the Earth
in time for evening.

I can hear the names
-they never give up
and through this table
is moving closer

-I don't answer the dead
but my eyes ache from gusts
homeward into a withered tree
a falling in the dark
and under my arms
the light almost green, almost here.




*
The rug, the chair, the rusted bedframe
keep this yard warm
--it could just as well be a bus

be that mountain
letting through the stranded
the scattered, the roadway

and never closed --the lopsided table
the rotting, the snow
that wants so little care

that climbs so easily
has its family's slope
small trees and falling rocks

--pick up a rock, any rock
feel how slowly it begins to heat
as if the mountain was thinking it over

might close after all
and this yard --there won't be time
--your breath frozen in mid-air

--what you tried to scream
will point to where your hand once was
where the snow was and over your eyes.




*
This radio loose, its voice
aroused at night :the static
impatient --there's no face

no arms, no breasts --all I see
is the climbing turn
for stars and that fleece lined jacket

filling with light
drifts into another evening
--the song widens, tightens

--all those stars at once
to come when told, the sky
led forward by a fire it never sees

a voice and rapture, its face
devoured, no lips, no thighs
--what's left is what's blue

is the way I sing along
half frozen --without the jacket
holding on to my hand.




*
This loaf and one more bone :the crust
must sense how its flesh
smells sweeter than butter --days too

harden when left alone, they need
a cutting board, a knife
helps them remember, work

the marrow --tears too :the crumbs
I keep finding in my shoes
--even on its side this blade

--from such a petal till my cheeks
covered with pollen, with mid-day
and pebbles :a spray taking root

opened for flowers, for the lips
--this loaf heated again, filled
with hands and knees, ready to come back.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.