*
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.
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 HERE.
*
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. Family of Man (Pavement Saw Press) is scheduled for Fall 2009. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website HERE.
