Simon Perchik * Though every night is sand the slightest breeze
empties the Earth into a few small stones
stretches out on this rickety bedside table
already a necklace for this headstone
starts a fire in your chest :a single landing light
coming by to make her look her best
and the smoke from some plane
as if you were going somewhere together
circling tighter and tighter, lost
dressed warm with flowers and kisses
with you in its mouth as songs about waves
where your arm used to be. *
oceans, butterflies –you need this beach
Tied to the ground this shovel
–a waterline can save you now
relies on the heights
let you softly down, tied hour after hour
though it’s your arm spreading out
to the widening stone overhead
–you whittle off pieces
no longer the silk dress that opened
the way its long handle
with just your breath and in your arms
shaped the Earth
the charred guitar still trembles
opened its slow roll-over
when wood comes too close and string
for wood that will become
touches the pillow or your fingers.
a second sun yet February
* This grave gives thanks and it’s sad –her name
is already a single day
hollowed out from the bone in your body
warmer than all the others
not connected to any other
expects you to remember, dig
though help will never come –your throat
till a hole rises alongside
gave up everything just to dig itself in
as a few hours
and yet this dirt still changes hands where none was there before. 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 Osiris Poems published by boxofchalk, 2017. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. To view one of his interviews please follow this linkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8 Issue 14 | Blue Mountain Review | 32