You drink from this hole
as if it once was water
became a sky then wider
–without a scratch make room
for driftwood breaking loose
from an old love song in ashes
carried everywhere on foot
as that ocean in your chest
overflowing close to the mouth
that’s tired from saying goodbye
–you dig the way the Earth
is lifted for hillsides and lips
grasping at the heart buried here
still flickering in throats and beacons
that no longer recede –from so far
every word you say owes something
to a song that has nothing left, drips
from your mouth as salt and more salt.
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 AlmostRain, 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.
