Only slower, that same song, word by word
lowered into your coffin each evening
forwards at first, then backward
for some off-center memory kept smoldering
but why the blanket –face to face
you can hardly tell it’s a lullaby, a voice
still warm, tucked into your crib from a tree
that’s lifted from the bottom, covered
with doves stuffed with darkness –try
listen the way you once did
though this fairy-like hush finds you
again on your back, jumping and running
and under the soft mud some vague happiness
is coming to an end –try! at least remember
the mouth that opened over the wood and ate.
Four hundred miles, four hundred
broken apart for the road inside
though this box-like hole in your chest
salted over –every winter now
you wear two shirts, white, torn
so you don’t surround the cold
with sandwiches when soup is needed
–you bring along a bowl that lets itself
be carried off, empty, cared for
something to count that’s more than two
yet one finger loosens, its light spills out
as moons, single file and in the open
circles the snow fallen through
bolted to the ground –someone
feeding someone so many times.
The doctor had a name for it, your palm
wets itself, folding her favorite dress
with a vague sound from the ceiling
though she will get used to a rain
that belongs somewhere else
that doesn’t care you’re undressed
have something to do with the cold
and the smoke-blackened sheets
pouring over her shoulders and legs
–you have become a place close by
stand here naked in front a mirror
with nothing more to take away.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, 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.
–Art by Denis Olivier