Five untitled poems by Simon Perchik
*
They have no second thoughts
and still your footprints
inch by inch, gradually
made whole the way this shovel
lost its taste for dirt
carries in only snowfall
leaves its own reason at home
for a room that stays
close by, becomes those skies
one by one, done for, dives
on every path night first
–you dig for worms
as if one would tell you
or show you, or move your hand
or with the light off
a kamikaze cry for light
–you have no return
and step by step no morning.
*
This dishwater –why not! cold
flowing backward will be clean again
though you rinse the cup
upside-down, slowly, wallowing
and since you are left handed
you have to reach across
till your skin tightens, grows
scales and once on shore
your jaws flatten, consoled
that the dead are drinking instead
are already flowers and each evening
becomes one more grateful hillside
waiting for rain the way all dirt
holds back the dead as riverbanks
–it makes sense! inside this sink
an overpowering thirst for under
–what you call daylight
was once eternal rain
and night after night you wash
this same cup, over and over
to start a simple fire.
*
It has nothing to do with flames
but since your shadow comes from the sun
it starts out as silence
already knows in the few hours left
another evening will flow
and once inside your bones
even more restlessness
–the sun will never be content
till it ripens you into someone else
bewitched the way your shadow
breaks with the past, is absorbed
and once in the ground, nourished
safe from predators and over time
even this moon will become a sun
ignited half by sunlight
half at your side while the night
in its sudden joy becomes a morning
you never heard before.
*
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.
*
It’s the lane-to-lane
that throws their aim off
though for other reasons
you can’t hold on, the map
too slippery and the climbing turn
is already opened much too wide
–even without the landing lights
the straight line is dangerous
tries to get a bead on you
the way stretchers lift the dead
who want only to move again
–take command! do in-and-out
or what chance do you have
with this constant terror
–a split-second stare
can break the windshield apart
and its slow, sunlit curve
all those years in the making
was not saved, its pieces
laid out as roadway and glass
and that half look over your shoulder
to pass on the silence
you were waiting for, already lowered
into shadow and the wings.
