Five Untitled Poems
By Simon Perchik
This sidewalk is going nowhere– with each step
you hear the moon though one foot still reaches out
returns before the other leaves, weighted down
with a darkness made from stone and scratches
– you listen for a sea cast off as if for every shore
there’s another side that lets your shadow rise
till suddenly it’s wood, has sap, is rotting
the way you drift side to side to become
a raft that has no sail, no ceiling, no bell
and in the corners the streetlight that’s blinking
even in daylight smells from salt and rope
is little by little carried up as further still.
*
It’s so you can remember– you hold both lips
against this window though its glass was shattered
by a long ago love song and the cold
– every word now smells from the blouse
she no longer unbuttons– from this broken window
you watched each breath falling to its death
– it was a small room, a bed, a radio and now
even smaller– the curtain, half a rag, half little by little
had flowers that sang along, had bells.
*
You come here to stay though the moon
keeps its stare, makes its descent
the way these graves were dug
– in such a silence an old man
is wrapping a headstone
with his wife’s favorite dress
still filled with the darkness
that never dries, became a sea
covered the Earth, disguised as rain
and though you buttoned the sleeves
when you left the house its lights
were still on, the shades pulled down.
*
The way this banister reaches out
its staircase is taking a measurement
and though it locked each rung in place
they still long for lift, to find order
when nothing is let go– by instinct
you make the climb, holding it in place
with fingertips, each embraced by the other
to little by little become desire
and what touch is all about
– you’re new at this– three flights
that have no other place to go
are pulling you back to their old ways.
*
To warm itself the first star
wobbled the way you now depend
on chance, be given time
and though the woman in the picture
is no longer there you still dust
what’s left, faster and faster
heated with water and salt– you bet
the glass is used to sweat
knows all about skies and distances
and though there are now so many stars
you still tremble once they disappear
– it’s luck! the nothing that stayed
shows up, lets you shake her shoulders
for their ashes, for a trace
and between your arms their emptiness.
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 Family of Man Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2021. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website. To view one of his interviews, click here.