Your shadow spreads across
the way this hillside
once it catches fire cools
half molten rock, half
your usual breakfast, no plate
no table, just a few hours
boiled in beach grass and the smell
mornings once gave off -you
are always lost, moving things
an arm, a foot, until the air
is bitter, has no salt, no smoke
-nothing’s left in you
-even if you want to be alive
this darkness will call you back
is already reaching up, swollen
from emptiness and your throat
opened for paving stones
you don’t know how to narrow down.
~ Simon Perchik
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. More information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities†and a complete bibliography, can be found at his website.
Artwork:Â Familiar, by Marria Khan
