The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Simon Perchik

*

You try to hide the way all hillsides

are warmed from inside and sunlight

useless, begin each breath

in a mouth far off, lit by thirst

and those slow lips where evenings

come to listen—it's an old sun, one

you're never sure will be a morning

let you surface again, go

as if you were leaving a heart

to give yourself up :a breath

that would empty the Earth—even so

it begins inside a whisper not yet

a mound, with a shadow all its own

spreading out your flowers—a harbor

smelling from distance and spray.

*

You have a feel for place to place

fresh from the ground and trains

stopping by to check the gates

each station and even in winter

arrives late, surrounded

by a drizzle against the window pane

and your hair can't dry, is trapped

inside this old hat half stone, half

crushed, half its hot-shot tilt

in so many directions at once

falling along the tracks

without a sound covers your forehead

lets it grow old and escape again

is possible without more rain

looking for help or the barracks.