*

behind closed doors 10, by Saqib Hanif. Courtesy: ArtChowk Gallery

And though the snow still clings
smelling from breasts
— you are afraid sit down

stop short the way your mouth
no longer spreads its devouring glow
changes into water, then winter

then cups your hand
squeezing the sky into ice
then darkness — you dread

this breathing out loud
till it becomes fragrant
and lets the skin over your lips

listen as flowers
while your arms fill with arms
that are not yours, are covered

with shallow river water
flowing past you as moonlight
and this snow feeding the ground

on loneliness and mornings
already dead, shaping the Earth
fitting it deep into your throat

for the cry falling toward you
as kisses, as oceans, then skies
— you never had a chance.

~ Simon Perchik

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Osiris, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is ‘Almost Rain’, published by River Otter Press (2013).