Literary Orphans

Three Untitled Poems
by Simon Perchik

Dreamspace_Reloaded_17_by_Denis_Olivier

*

Only slower, that same song, word by word

lowered into your coffin each evening

forwards at first, then backward

 

for some off-center memory kept smoldering

but why the blanket –face to face

you can hardly tell it’s a lullaby, a voice

 

still warm, tucked into your crib from a tree

that’s lifted from the bottom, covered

with doves stuffed with darkness –try

 

listen the way you once did

though this fairy-like hush finds you

again on your back, jumping and running

 

and under the soft mud some vague happiness

is coming to an end –try! at least remember

the mouth that opened over the wood and ate.

O Typekey Divider

*

Four hundred miles, four hundred

broken apart for the road inside

though this box-like hole in your chest

 

salted over –every winter now

you wear two shirts, white, torn

so you don’t surround the cold

 

with sandwiches when soup is needed

–you bring along a bowl that lets itself

be carried off, empty, cared for

 

something to count that’s more than two

yet one finger loosens, its light spills out

as moons, single file and in the open

 

circles the snow fallen through

bolted to the ground –someone

feeding someone so many times.

O Typekey Divider

*

The doctor had a name for it, your palm

wets itself, folding her favorite dress

with a vague sound from the ceiling

 

though she will get used to a rain

that belongs somewhere else

that doesn’t care you’re undressed

 

have something to do with the cold

and the smoke-blackened sheets

pouring over her shoulders and legs

 

–you have become a place close by

stand here naked in front a mirror

with nothing more to take away.

O Typekey Divider

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013).  For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Simon-Perchik

O Typekey Divider

–Art by Denis Olivier

best Running shoes brand | Nike