*
You limp and her casket
breaking open, its splinters
lose hold and this dirt
is water again, each ripple
wider and wider drags ashore
though the pebble you tossed
covers the sea with a darkness
that spends its life drowning
–a tiny rock broken off
from your step by step holding on
forever –you walk on water, close
to the crater’s rim half wood
half storm, half where her voice
could be mistaken for moonlight
for the one stone more who in the end
is dead and you lift it
gently, lower it to your lips
as if it was a whisper, or a mouth.
*
Open the lid! if you have to
use teeth :hailstones
left over from the winter making room
–inside the can
its paint spins backwards
covers a rot that never leaves
and when the carpenters finish
rust –you stir till winds
begin to warm from the rain
brush against your arm
pulling the sun closer
firmly on the sill
–sometimes it takes all Spring
sometimes a few weeks, the air
little by little growing mold
worn out though the year
that has nothing to do with love opens
before you can catch your breath.
*
You never get all its air out
yet this water boiling
takes your hands along –shopping
is its secret passageway
lowered in front this display case
half glass, half with the sea inside
though your heart stays dry
begins to tip-toe past something new
in a box that is not a wound
–to buy is all that’s needed
is your fingers squeezing the Earth
for its first river, its first raindrop
flowing slowly as string
no longer thirsty or old
or trying to lift off the lines
from your palm while you count out
one by one :a language
only the dead still understand
–you pay and the bells you hear
know all about how a bubble not yet dry
trickles down on your lips
floating off around the corner
and you can open your eyes again
–you don’t hear the moon but it’s a start.
*
This envelope never dries, her name
tightening a faceless turn
that has the sky to itself
–she is still leaving, rising
thinning out while your hand
still damp holds on to a curtain
that is not a dress
and between your fingers
wasted words, wasted years
wasted you –what’s left
is a room half walls
half emptiness, half cold mist
as if there’s not enough light
to sweeten this note kept naked
covered with rivers and your arms.
*
All it takes are these stones
arranged the way the moon
still calms –madness
needs this care, both hands
smoothing the dirt
pushing a sea into place
as if its shore was already there
would recognize what will work
and what doesn’t –you restore order
just by bending over a circle
though you can go further
till closer and closer each stone
overflows with hour after hour
pulled from the soothing bottom
as your lips and real water.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review,
The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.
DM du Jour 