Article 12

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    previous page&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp contents&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp next page