By Simon Perchik
PROMPT — If only ...
*
You think it's a breeze and not some butterfly
spreading its great wing in front of the sun
the way your early arms would sweep clear
the path already widened for flying stars
now left to drift while still in formation
and everywhere at once as the wings
now lifeless as a wall that's not stone
is thinner than its shadow and reaches through
̶what you hear you heard, was a kitchen table
and in the same breath becomes laughter
family, far away uncles, cousin-in-laws
whose names too are now forgotten
though they still overflow, are lifted around and
around telling you it's still possible
for a sky without its warm rain or morning.
*
Stretched out on the water, a sky
is still drying off though the early sea
stayed behind the way every fossil now
leaves its last breath ̶in time
this cemetery will be harvested
and every grave listed into a circle
piled so each tear warms the others
by reaching down, reminding you dead
it's two hands you're drinking from
and in between nothing but silence
̶there's room now for another breath
already with a shadow, has your voice.
*
The shadow that never leaves
is lifting her arm, lets you move closer
see how the grass carries away its green
has become darker, almost black
̶the sun too lost its life here
was broken apart and all afternoon
you wait though the stars grow back
and from the same place call out
till her grave takes hold the Earth
drops it into your breath stone by stone
as the one knock after another
against a door that no longer opens
yet lets out her voice as the undergrowth
swaying side to side ̶a frail breeze
smelling from dirt and hand in hand.
*
With each kiss your breath
presses against this dirt
still warm from shovels
emptied one by one
the way this hillside drifts
weightless to the sea
as shoreline for the descent
your emptiness makes
into an ancient valley
where there was none before
̶you dead are used to this
fill your mouth with the cry
not yet the word for footsteps
that come by to listen and stay
̶not yet the words for gravestone.
*
Though this hat has lost its authority
you can hear the plea its fleece makes
for grass ̶what you hold in your hands
can't save you now and the mower
slips and stalls ̶you're still seated
facing the controls, in the same formation
the dead learn early from each other
are constantly looking for place
to land the way this lawn becomes
a pasture where your head is lowered
already covered with dew about to burst
into flames as songs from the 40s.
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 The Family of Man Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2021. For more information, including free e-books and his essay, “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit Simon's website at simonperchik.com. Simon writes from East Hampton, NY. To view one of his interviews, go to: youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8