write this
emmer effer
a pretend genius broadsuction
some days are better than none
Simon Perchik
poems
*
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.
*
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.
*
You mourn the way this sand
has no strength, keeps warm
between one day and another
and your closed hands
that need the place
left by a small stone
dropping slowly in water
though what rests here
is the emptiness already mist
and nothing starts again
--you dig as if this beach
blossoms once your fingers
open and these dead
lose their way among the flowers
that no longer come home
--you kneel easily now
pulled down by your shadow
following head first as rain
heavier and heavier
tracing a face with just your lips
and worn out nod.
*
You have this kinship, the limp
balances you and the Earth
already blossoming
with nothing under it
though you lift one foot
closer to the other
hillside after hillside
the way mud settles and clots
--you’re used to losing, come
so this cane can grab your hand
almost in time and what’s left
above the ground, knows
you’re drowning, in rain
stops and starts, in dirt
and tells you everything.
Simon Perchik an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Best, St.
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