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POETRY
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By
Simon Perchik
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The Montréal Review, June 2011
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You still don't trust seabirds
must enjoy September coming back
closing in on your birthday
on these leaves all year watching out
for the cold almost within sight
--the piercing, high-pitched shriek
is just this rake grabbing hold
more dirt, another burrow, stones
--I've never learned
to please you with height.
I only know to dig, to reach
under, to cradle the dirt
that eats nothing, to plead with it
over and over the way a child is taught
in a chair higher than usual
--I don't see you yet
and the air here melts when handled
becomes blurred, comets swoop
for one more pass while my arms
clutch this struggling darkness
to make you eat, sit up
open your mouth for this fork, the cake
still warm, its candles circling down
to overtake the sun --sparks
everywhere! sweetened, still lit
not yet snow and your mouth
almost listening, almost daylight.
*
Waiting all afternoon the dark
is treated the way a parasite
dreads shells and emptiness
though a blue residue cools the sky
spreads out so its light everywhere
can run just so fast from the blindness
children still count on their hands
--at least applause! some medal
but not the sun, no stars either
--be generous! each nightfall
deserves two, one equation
clocks its speed, retells
how darkness shapes all curvature
and one to show how light
in place umpteenzillion years before
still can't peel your shadow off
without it harder to breathe
--how much proof do you want!
I ask you, can light, even at noon
raise your body temperature
--only darkness has the youth
to reach under the ground
as if its twin were somehow
this feeble light dragged by winter
and stone --look, it's simple
--a test, feet together, now
one bare hand to wave goodbye
--the one left over weighs more
begins to curl, becomes older
--check it out, the numbers are there
always the same durable night after night
while the flesh from each fingertip
falls back exhausted, tastes bitter
even with your eyes closed.
*
And you, licking this reef
the way herds are nourished
with salt --even your tongue
has a trace, bitter, brackish
stings though salt
is what keeps stone stone
--with each lick
another mountainside and your tongue
longing for the ocean floor
for more salt setting fire
to the snow and falling
so near the peak --you clear a lane
for the moon who can spare
just so many mornings
just so much light --with both eyes
you sprinkle salt as if this stone
dissolves only by leaning backward
barren, covered over
and though your lips are skinned alive
it's the pressure at sea level
that garbles the breath
you almost make out and keep trying.
*
Masks take practice, the sneer
stretched head to foot, a tongue
filled with snakes :your watch
is useless against the sun, strapped
the way even battle-scorched shields
couldn't stop its shadow
coming to hold you by the hand
patiently close your eyes --at least
you try, hold out your small watch
as if the billion year old sun
needs a few seconds more.
You overdo it! your wrist
blistered, ugly, fierce
that barely covers your eyes
and the quick look up
each time the sun breaks away
from the Earth --you learn
to count the stones by twos
that can't move, by the lips
bursting into flames
the way an outstretched breath
over and over tries.
*
He has this rule, No tools
and for the same reason
I take his beat-up ladder
--he knows it won't be used
that inside a week I'm back
better than ever with thanks
and carried on my shoulder.
Each Spring's the same
--I bring the 6-pack, wait
for the You shouldn't have
while he opens 2, tells me
how the shed needs a lock
and I admit to nothing
though the dust rag
is there in my hand
--he's used to this, Buy one
you cheapskate, wants to hear
how it's not the same, the ladder
has to be glommed and a neighbor
who goes along, explains again
how expensive a strong lock is
then snaps back the lid
as if the loving tab would light
the world and everyone who ever lived
seen again, holding on
with no one passing the other
--we have it settled, the ladder
is his, stays dingy, leans
inside the shed the way a dead child
still calls to its mother
and once each year I carry off
these powerful wishes rung by rung
return their distant heights and wings. |
***
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay " Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com |
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