Poems by Simon Perchik
*
Blurred yet something with wings
tucked in its eggs and your skin
swollen for a single cry
to feed on a morning close by
with a warm bowl held out
dripping the way flowers
still blossom in pain
careful not to leave the ground
-it could have been
some hillside, after a long flight
carrying your arm as a stronghold
for rain not yet dying down
between strangers and shelter
-it happened so fast
there’s nothing left to pull back.
*
It’s a meal, your elbows
crawling the way this soap
is shaped by salt
though she still believes
the water stays young
by letting you touch it
washing her shoulders
with undersea prairies
as if an arm so old
could still reach out
make room in her breasts
for nourishment
and already your fingers
smell from saliva
and empty riverbeds
kept wet for these wrinkles
taking away her cheeks
her legs and agony.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.