Simon Perchik

THREE UNTITLED POEMS

What’s left is its wingtip
though you can still tell time
by pointing end over end

the way lovers come to this park
take that last look back
burning alive in each other’s arms 

–the plane never had a chance
and you’re not supposed to wave like that
making room for its enormous death

though every night begins as soot
from benches, thighs, kisses, the on and on
thrown in the fire for later. 

*

You draw a star on the calendar
and without touching your lips
an unexpected breeze reminds you

there’s now in writing where light
will slow down and the days take forever
to remember someone is holding your hand

embracing August the way a rock still alive
is broken in half and without a sound
added to the fire –it’s a see-through star

and under your fingers forgets
it has a shadow just now starting out
will cover the Earth with a night

that goes on burning –you use a pencil
for its wood that knows nothing but corners
kept sharp even when turning to stone.

*

You can’t tell from these clouds
why this afternoon was set on fire
is burning through some lullaby

you’re singing to yourself
by gathering a few leaves, some twigs
for the gentleness falling out your mouth 

–you dead know how it is, each hush
must be buried on the way back
with lips that bleed when rinsed in rainwater
leaving a sky that no longer takes root. 

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 Rosenblum Poems 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.