Simon Perchik
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*
So what it's string, not rope—this bell
has nothing to hang on to though the sun
weighs nothing once it's attached
the way this ceiling was made from a wall
spreading out till what you hear
becomes the chimes to call their dead back
where there are no mornings—it's just a lamp
half magic, half dangling high above the bed
you don't sleep in anymore, are over and over
counting the blows to open something
made from glass as if piece by piece
could pull you to the surface
and stay lit, cling as your only hope
to free the light with your arms
that have at last found the way home.
*
This chair no longer moves by itself
though you covered it with a dress
the way all sleeves empty in the dark
—what you want her to wear
you throw over her shoulders and the table too
knows how each warm breeze begins
by moving the chair closer to you
while reaching for a bowl and spoon
as if you were still feeding someone
could salt her lips with your fingers
not yet turning to dust and mold—you eat
in a coat, sure the bread will cool
no longer smelling from arms and shoulders
from being burnt for the few ashes
you are fed as crust and ends.
*
Black grass—even its dirt hunts for flesh
grows lush on the dead it captures
parades side by side across this field
as flags becoming stone and bit by bit
—you are already a whisper, weakened
by the shadows no longer leaving
though the light in your throat went out
pulling each bone from your body
where there should be stars—this darkness
could save you now, be food, let you mourn
as the night sky, higher and higher
feeding on pieces, ashes, mold and the cries.
*
Already a cane :one leg
born colder than the other
stretched out to find North
by slowly pressing the ground
though nothing moves inside
except moonlight digging for rocks
the way you dead hold on to the Earth
with just a handshake and evenings
that became too heavy.
*
This horizon can't take the stress
and though her grave is not that heavy
it's let go as moonlight when you pass by
leave a small stone the way the Earth
each evening leans too far and for a few hours
seas rise—this makeshift dam no longer holds
and the sky is emptied—for such a darkness
you bring another candle, lit by giving back
before it became your first breath.
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 Rosenblum Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2020. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.