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The Literary Review

Page 41

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With just one heart and so many nights
you mistake this cane for a camera
that stopped one foot from walking away

reminded it to end the wave goodbye
as if the trigger and flash that followed
were no longer moving –what you hear

is your hand clinging to this photograph
the way a map unfolds on a wall
to memorize how loose the corners are

–you limp as if the cane was adjusted
for distances, is carried too close
tries to remember what happened to it.

Simon Perchik __

The hand that is too heavy
once lifted planes, suns
now wears a glove to a bed

that knows all about darkness
and the emptiness waiting inside
where your feebleminded fingertips

no longer can fold in
then yank as if a sheet
would open and just this hand

make its descent side by side
the warmth smelling from breasts
and afternoons spreading out

though now their sunlight
circles the Earth as ashes
–you pack this glove each night

the way a brace is locked in place
to hold on, take root
without air and now you.

Simon Perchik __

It’s not the sink –what you hear
is the sun all night calling its mothers
though their embrace still arrives

as thirst and the morning –two stars
brighter and brighter till the sun
is born at the exact minute it needs

to bury its darkness in the fragrance
smoke gives off as clouds and the longing
for rain rising from the sea –you splash

and between each finger its shadow
begins to breathe, is hugging you
with the wet towel and its hidden body.

Simon Perchik__

This is it –a match, wood, lit
the way a butterfly returns
by warming its wings wider

and wider, one against the other
then waits for the gust to spew out
as smoke lifting you to the surface

–this single match circling down
half on fire, half held close
is heating your grave, has roots

–embrace it, become a flower
fondle the ashes word by word
that erupt from your mouth

as an old love song, a breeze
worn away by hills and the light
coming back then lying down.

Simon Perchik__