by Simon Perchik
*
Not yet finished melting :the sun
—you can hear its sea struggling
spilling over though each morning
it comes from behind now
brushes against this cemetery gate
that’s still shining, floating past
—to this day you go home
the back way —you don’t see
your reflection or the ground
face to face with shoreline
—what you hear are waves :one hand
reaching for another and in the dark
you let your fingers unfold end over end
then close, gather in these fountains
as if they belong one side then another
are nearly too much stone —here
where this gate is filling its lungs
and you tearing it in two.
*
Again The Times, spread-eagle
the way these subway doors
once were waves opening out
as the faint wings beating now
between your arms and the track
—a dark, single thread
pulls this sea under
though on the bottom
you can’t be sure it’s morning
or two shorelines, side by side
crawling into that slow, climbing turn
half sand, half you never get used to
—page over page
covered with weeds :feathers
from a long way off —you can touch
their darkness :words still dangerous
circling with seabirds :your eyes
don’t want you, are closed.
*
Lower and lower this fan
smells from stone and the ice
broken off your forehead
still in the same, tight turn
holding on, almost back —you stare
even with sunglasses, the ones
you wear at funerals, cooled
the way this small room
has already started as snow
not yet the invisible arm in arm
louder and louder overhead
without a trace and no place to go
to harden, take hold, darken
let its wings down, close
your eyes and the ceiling.
*
Appearing and disappearing, this gate
you wave between one hand
after the other and doves on cue
break through the way each flourish
opens midair, is helped along
clearing the rooftops, palms up
—on your back as the aimless path
that has such low windows
—from nowhere, no longer white
each stone is closing its wings
letting go the sky, the graves
and just as suddenly your shoulders.
*
These graves listen to you
though they lean too far
half side to side, half
taking hold your spine, blinded
in front by sunlight, in back
by its endless bending down
as if together these bones
would steady you, in time
your limp disappear
already the small stones
buried here, there, in the open
to tell you what happened.
*
To clear your lips —a simple wipe
though once spread out
your sleeve fills with shoreline
follows on its own, washed
with enormous wings
shaken off the stale crumbs
half sand, half seabirds
half before each meal
—you don’t use spoons
they won’t resist enough
would empty the way this bowl
is still looking for what will pour
easily through your heart
letting it drip and for hours
one arm circles the other
closer and closer, the one
that will stay with you forever
—always the wide, lower and lower
reaching in —your mouth
no longer clears the rim
broken open by its cry
to jump! and you bleed
again from your arms letting go
their dead breeze, dead sky, dead mouth.
*
It’s a risk, these clouds
gathered in the open, grow huge
take on the shape they need
though once inside this jar
escape is impossible
—you collect a cloud whose mist
no one studies anymore, comes
from a time rain was not yet the rain
pressing against your forehead
and your mouth too has aged
coming from nowhere to open
as some mountainside
believed by all the experts
too high for predators
or a dirt that devours
even its place to hide in flowers
yet you will date the jar
for their scent and later on.
*
And both arms more and more
spread-eagle, clasping the dirt
tearing it side to side —another sore
cut out the way a shrug
is divided piece by piece
carted away in songs about love
that no longer depend on lips
reaching across as mist
not yet sunlight or useless
—you dig two holes, one
for bells, the other no longer bleeds
is already moving the sky closer
letting it lean forward
emptying the Earth, kept open
and listening for kisses.
*
And when the tide slowly at first
though the palm underneath is smaller
girlish, clinging to sand and each other
the way all night these clams
are etched by your gentle waves
already the bond all water
grows used to :hand over hand
tasting from salt and each shell
counted as two —in the dark
it’s easy to mistake all that’s left
with a single shoreline —the sea
led down, emptied clam by clam
to close it, knee deep in madness
in some vineyard, kisses and kisses
counting as if you are still uncertain.
*
With all its weight this wall
just built and is already
tugging at your side
as if with every birth
its twin will block your path
with those same flowers
mourners still pull up
try to climb a bit longer
reach out the way these stones
half marble, half bubbling
interlocked, higher and higher
almost crushing you
with their garbled cries
as hillsides, to bring
more, to cool and one another.
___
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 B Poems published by Poets Wear Prada, 2016. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.