By: Simon Perchik

*
To clear your lips –a simple wipe
though once spread out
your sleeve fills with shoreline

follows on its own, washed
with enormous wings
shaken off the stale crumbs

half sand, half seabirds
half before each meal
–you don’t use spoons

they won’t resist enough
would empty the way this bowl
is still looking for what will pour

easily through your heart
letting it drip and for hours
one arm circles the other

closer and closer, the one
that will stay with you forever
–always the wide, lower and lower

reaching in –your mouth
no longer clears the rim
broken open by its cry

to jump! and you bleed
again from your arms letting go
their dead breeze, dead sky, dead mouth.

    *
    And both arms more and more

spread-eagle, clasping the dirt
tearing it side to side –another sore

cut out the way a shrug
is divided piece by piece
carted away in songs about love

that no longer depend on lips
reaching across as mist
not yet sunlight or useless

–you dig two holes, one
for bells, the other no longer bleeds
is already moving the sky closer

letting it lean forward
emptying the Earth, kept open
and listening for kisses.

    *

With all its weight this wall
just built and is already
tugging at your side

as if with every birth
its twin will block your path
with those same flowers

mourners still pull up
try to climb a bit longer
reach out the way these stones

half marble, half bubbling
interlocked, higher and higher
almost crushing you

with their garbled cries
as hillsides, to bring
more, to cool and one another.

*
This dirt still mimics sweat
lies down alongside, unsure
your lips would quiet it

though the finger that is familiar
probably is yours –could be enough
has already learned to point

–in time it will silence
even your shadow
without pulling it back down

as sunsets passing by
no longer some shoreline
unable to stop for these pebbles

struggling to rise together, take you
by the hand and without a sound
recognize the gesture.

*
You try to imagine the mirror
though there was an understanding
the jacket would not show through

and you could lift your chin
into the same wingspan
that hangs over this frost

just now coming in
already in front, same place
same time and at each get-together

the jacket tags along
as if it and the skyline
for a long time had been one