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3 Poems
Simon Perchik

Jutting from my neck its dorsal fin
strikes for this empty glass
for airholes in the ice :my shirt

snowblind and sled-dogs
tightening my tie --the shark
dives and my throat

fills with seawater, with that rise
each heart takes in
then leans across the ice and sunlight

as sails have always comforted the sea
--no matter how far they lean
the return was always possible
--even our shadows
no matter how gently the snow covers them
no matter how far into the Earth
they leave when we are ready
when we hear our thin bones

off course, gasping, without arms
or cheeks or the oceans they need forever
--from just out tears
and the light overflowing

empties to the breaking point :the stars
by heart, guiding a glacier into the Earth
into my collar and the barking.

*
This rain you never touched before
finds no peace either --don't look.
I have only one cup.

You would die from its sweetness
from the heat --held this close
it has the sweep

--you think it's that flare again
and you are deep offshore
--there's some mistake!

Why would I bring two cups?
You smash your gills dry, red
burning --each breath

melting, returned at last and together
thrown against the waves
against near your eyes two tiny fins

spread out for the ascent --at the surface
nothing can turn your eyes from this rain
homelike, and when you saw the others

--for just a second! saw their flickering
saw my arms shaking with leaves
with songbirds, with moonlight

--you saw the crack, the boat veer
--the light from my fingers leaf by leaf
till your fire --it lasts only seconds.

Your breathing fixed now in tides
everywhere warning the shore
making their pass as once you

--so quick! and I was gone. Don't look!
Don't look. This close the cup is enormous
--even I mistake the moon
for reunion, melody and whispers.

*
And in the dark my pillow, abandoned
shimmering --you've heard its cry before
tell me Try, get some sleep

take something from the night
even if it's only the continuous rails
or the train that is invisible
against the black, drenched mountainside

washing out its sweat or from under my cheek
the river wider, wider
--what I think is my arm
you say is only the window holding on.
There's room for a real arm.

You say I need more leverage, to sleep
on my side, that just this simple posture
props up the Earth till it sees itself
in front the careening headbeams :each train
as if all the stars are late
from everywhere, from nowhere

--rejoice! all this darkness, you say
from just one shadow :the sky
black all those years --even today
no one can count and I am older
than the sun, you say --that's why
the night is so familiar
so heavy on the windowpane, on the sun
and turning --I can stand in front a star

certain it will come so far and no further
--I am the waters, the strongman :the night
and all those ruthless years
fill into me and I --you say this

--are you sure? I still cringe
gathering my bedside lamp
into the darkness that never moves
that lives forever, close to the divine light
rising toward the sun, close to those stars
whose light is still invisible
all its own and dying

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.