*
You walk clinging to streams
from when the Earth was shattered
still gathers up the rocks broken off

for light where a sky should be
help the lost find their way home
and though her grave was left behind

you come here to start a fire by naming it
slowly after the tree that widened, became a sea
and every night washes over this stone

guiding it back as a singing –each leaf
already the warm breeze that reaches up
no longer smoke from arms and distances.


*
You wash this shirt at night
letting its buttons loosen
though the sleeves harden when wet

smell from salt then stone
–you become a lighthouse
–waves could save you now

come with a sea as that darkness
you need to embrace it, let the waters
take in that afternoon as if you

are still drowning, arm over arm
in the sand left over from an old love song
come back as lips to warm you

and though this is a small sink
it’s always August, deeper and deeper
filled by an open wound.


*
You close your eyes the way this toast
blackens on its own –a second Spring
explodes, starts its journey as crumbs

and though nothing is moving outward
once near your mouth the crust begins to swell
soften, become those breasts you swallow

all morning in the darkness between the coffee
and this cracked cup catching fire
making room for love to happen

flood the Earth full steam ahead on time
as if your skin had opened to warm her
sip by sip gripped by oceans and teeth.


*
All that’s left is the rain
tossed overboard as the silence
now falling on her forehead

–you are sailing too close
to the ditch covered with dirt
filling this harbor and night after night

though there’s so little wind
–nothing moves in this sea
except as an armada :flowers

that steady each ship with the rocks
mourners leave as those voices
you hear coming to an end.


*
It’s the silence when this mirror
becomes a door –with a forward step
a bolt slams shut and your face

is cleared for the slow climb
into another’s where the sky
asks itself will anyone return

still waving goodbye :you shave
to find the way out, shine
from scalding water and the razor

clutched so those afternoons
stay warm by closing your eyes
when quieted and drowning.


Author Bio:
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 Family of Man Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2021. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at simonperchik.com. To view one of his interviews please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8