*

What you open leans against wood

that is not a door you can muffle

put your arm around the only sound

when you knock on this kitchen table

whose corners were broken off

straight down, still lit, letting you in

circle her mouth not yet the room

left over and listen for the smoke

around the hush from small fires.

*

Just died and its rain

is already snow, comforts

the obituary page

with moonlight pieces

slowly circling down

as that star-shaped lullaby

small stones still look for 

–it’s this morning’s

though over your head the deaths

are hidden in silence

begging for water

that doesn’t break apart

the way each sky

is hollowed out for another 

–you make a sea

for these dead, each name

a boat, sails, the spray

midair and out loud. 

*

This tree abandoned at last

flows past as ravines and riverbeds

and can’t fall any more 

–it’s used to dirt and those initials

you carried along inch by inch

not in some stone letting you stop

for water –you were buried

in the afternoon, late so the light

could close the lid with leftover kisses

become an ocean, still burning

and between each wave the glint

from a clear silence you took for yes.

*

To survive you disguise each log

as the aromatic sun the mornings

can’t resist –even when naked

you hide some kindling close by

let it give birth in the smoke

that leaves with nothing, becomes

the emptiness though your eyes

never look up or warm –a fire

is feeling its way to your mouth

with lullabies and the small stone

falling asleep on the stove 

–you feed it wood as if your lips

still smell from milk and salt 

–an ancient, gentle art now lost

somewhere in those nightmares

set off by an empty dress

and along your forehead the light

begins to melt, wants to stay, keep going.

*

Even these weeds panic

circle around your fingertips

as if the stream they fasten on

knows only one direction –the dead

still fold their arms, dare you

to raise your hand, ask for salt

clear the ground before the no! no!

stops and in the silence makes room

for flowers and your mouth

sweetened by the warm breath

it still remembers as sunlight

struggling and the pull up! pull up!

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 Gibson Poems published by Cholla Needles, 2019. 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