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Poem
Simon Perchik

*
Again the watchful tide --this tiny rock
nourished, its moss
already smells from melting peaks

too steep --even the sun
will give up, icy streams
losing their way and this pail

coldest in the mornings, held
as every mountain range without a trace
and the air each day higher

--this beach too begins to climb
--you can feel under your feet
the windlight folding and folded again

--you can see the sand has a secret
has a brain, is planning to trust

and the tide that was to live forever
looks back, upwards, the rock is minutes away
covered with emptiness, with waiting and tears.

*
And though this tar breaks open
it's not Spring --in the curb
a hubcap :soldier-songs

and cannons needed at the front
--you will lift this helmet, surprised
the eyes are still warm, the trees

single file, softer than snowshoes
and letters home --you will lift
the roadway, traffic will stop

and snow muffle the small dent
half smoke, half fever, half echo
--it's hard to believe these trees

live by hearing, a mist
breaking into floes, into wings
and behind the engines

ailerons shaking each windshield
--you try dragging the trees
to safety, to the warm cheek

you hear slip past
as stars do, weighing you down
your arms immense, bending over.

*
Some sooner than others, the cup
cold, damp and then
a singing, hugs, cakes --this table

prepared, its span would enfold
be guided :the tattoo
must be administered --a stranger

and ask for a refill, assure
a stain and its circle

and the chairs somehow now are carried
higher, boiling pots
allowed to touch our shoulders

and a nail where you would expect
the windowpane to drain
--we hang this cup for birdseed
filled --how many times

though the waxes we buy
are already melted, the table
warmer and unshaken.

*
There are vines and this bowl
keeps warm, my hands
outlining the soft bone between your neck
and its vague whisper :the spoon

wobbles, smells from apple
--I turn my head away
though no one is watching
--close my eyes to wish

and in the darkness
making its way to my lips
to this narrow bench
stretched out, within reach --a waterfall

midair :a table cloth
now more than ever
bent over, stains jutting from the ice
--I forget and the soup

green from birdsong and leaves
still warm where your breasts
finding again and my hands
sift the soup for bones

for what lasts the longest :one half
held up, somehow a wish
flows over the world
over this spoon and clanking.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Readers interested in learning more about him are invited to read Magic, Illusion and Other Realities at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet which site lists a complete bibliography.