Simon Perchik


*
You cover the mirror that's facing the man
standing for hours inside a shop window
staring at your eyes  ̶ it's a hand-to-hand place

sells jars, tubes and side by side, small tins
filled with the daily guarantee there would be
no more loneliness once the glass is shattered

by stomping the one heel kept wet for the sound
each bottle makes with its ship full sail inside
where business is business and you lay down

with sea gulls, close to shore for the cries
from stars on the lookout for someone
to shut off the light, find you in the dark.


 
*
The rapids flowing through your hand
takes in tow this day-old bread
 ̶ from the start impatient for the end

is already sliced the way every waterfall
tries to bring its river with it
become the cry in that faint echo

it needs to find the shattered
 ̶ it's not a rock you're holding
though what's inside the splash

was left out to dry on this round table
as a lone crumb for that ancient necklace
you still glue to a fingertip for later

 ̶ you need bread that's a year old today
has mold whose shadow stays green
lets you sit where there is no grass

in a chair each night smaller, sure
it hears her when you close your eyes
to put out the light, use the other hand.



*
And though you left the sheet blank
the police are still investigating it
as some make-shift wall left in place

when the day after tomorrow arrived
all at once  ̶ they're waiting for the lab
to come up with how the ink

could have been swept away when the words
already had a place to stay and one by one
carried you off on a raft made from paper

with the pen no longer making estimates
how far the edge is, how deep the corners
the silence you finished working on.




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 Reflection in a 
Glass Eye  published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2020. 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 link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8
 
 

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