Simon Perchik
Two Poems
*
There’s still a chance, sit
so you can’t see the tunnel
fanning out behind you and the sky
that knows so much about it
lowers this train to the ground
still falling back, tormented
by something overdue, the seat
half firewall, half
some hollow mound moving away
without the others, high above
the evening you are looking for
though you turn your back
the way your eyelids are used to the dark
at home in your hands, no longer
uncertain when to close and grieve
–all these years reflected in the night
your face gives off, clouded over
with glass, holding on, sleepless
–arrive unexpected! grown over
with weeds, with the hidden mountainside
around your shoulders and emptiness.
*
They wait for this match
to let them in all at once
–these stars need more time
smothered by how quiet the sun
waits in the darkness
this candle knows by heart
–it’s your usual match, half wood
half some mountainside
breathing again and rock by rock
rescued by the simple flame
that looms over you as smoke
broken open for rain and falling back
–such is the need for a face
–the ground almost asleep
kept warm, expecting you.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, 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.
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Two Poems
*
There’s still a chance, sit
so you can’t see the tunnel
fanning out behind you and the sky
that knows so much about it
lowers this train to the ground
still falling back, tormented
by something overdue, the seat
half firewall, half
some hollow mound moving away
without the others, high above
the evening you are looking for
though you turn your back
the way your eyelids are used to the dark
at home in your hands, no longer
uncertain when to close and grieve
–all these years reflected in the night
your face gives off, clouded over
with glass, holding on, sleepless
–arrive unexpected! grown over
with weeds, with the hidden mountainside
around your shoulders and emptiness.
*
They wait for this match
to let them in all at once
–these stars need more time
smothered by how quiet the sun
waits in the darkness
this candle knows by heart
–it’s your usual match, half wood
half some mountainside
breathing again and rock by rock
rescued by the simple flame
that looms over you as smoke
broken open for rain and falling back
–such is the need for a face
–the ground almost asleep
kept warm, expecting you.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, 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.