Simon Perchik
You sharpen one hand with the other
though you’ve heard it all before
how every embrace traps the light
these dead feed on, need each grave
closing in on the others, a fireball, the sun
to find its moon in the sound
stone makes invisible when singing
in rows –you hear this chorus as a song
about coming home which means a shoreline
arm over arm emptied into the sea
starting again from the beginning
–in such a darkness you smell from salt
and longing –are torn apart on the spot
by pebbles and mountains within reach
waiting just below the surface.
About the writer:
Simon Perchik’s poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere.
Image: Hercules and Love Affair by Alex Nizovsky. Acrylic on canvas. 36 x 24 inches. By permission.
