Five Poems By Simon Perchik

Five poems by Simon Perchik

*

These windows know all about lakes

hiding among the dead –by instinct

the glass freezes, just so

 

and slowly you carve two initials

as if the name underneath

would follow the way a small hole

 

heats the ice, lures the fish closer

taking hold though the glare

is already marshland, drains

 

where one finger let go

the other and the room fills

counts on you to come.

 

 

*

                     This bloom still reckless, its heat

breaking into the furious hum

bugs use for melting snow 

 

–there’s no interest in romance

though every winter now

is warmed, takes hold your hand

 

by brushing against the dirt

risks its place to lure you, naked

in front the house, her breasts

 

surrounded and across your tongue

a lingering darkness welcomes them

knows nothing why your fingers smell

from avalanche and salt

and never had that taste for sweets

moving mouth to mouth

 

snatching things up, louder and louder

certain this frost is frost, named

so soon after its birth and yours.

 

 

*

Hopeless! you add more salt

the way another spoonful

rows you across, the spray

 

clouding over with shoreline

–this soup has to be heated again

spread out as if night after night

 

you need a bigger pot

already with its darkness

caked on to these stars coming by

 

so early –to the same place

and for a second time are trembling

cling without touching your face.

 

     

*

You reach into that darkness

stars return for, are cooled

and yet you open the mail

 

slowly so in each envelope

the letter folding over and over

still falls out as mist

 

covers the ground

almost to a boil –you retrace

the way the blind find shelter

 

and with just your fingertips

empty the small fire

hidden behind the others

 

waiting for its shadow

cut off from home

and at the slightest touch.

*

Splash is how this stone

remembers squeezing your hand

then letting go, covers the ground

 

with seawater though you

can’t taste the salt

and inside each embrace

 

the first thunderclap and shrug

no longer dries, your shoulders

falling now as loneliness

 

then sand –you listen

the way all marble is crushed

drowns from the same gesture

 

that takes you arm in arm

bathes you tighter and tighter

for pebbles and caring.