Simon Perchik



*
Not yet feathers though you
still breathe in the smoke
trailing from some climbing turn

hidden by clouds and weightless
circling this tree allowed at last
to shed its bark, warmed

the way each leaf expects
a better life somewhere, takes hold
with its wings around the Earth

carried up hillside over hillside
spurting more and more blood
from your eyes, your ears

till their shadow flies from under you
escapes this time, hovering overhead
as branches and evenings

and further though their roots
come by to remember why this sky
ended its wandering and closed.



*
Again your shadow loose in the attic
as if more light could help
coming for old letters, broken frames

not sure what was torn apart
has healed by now, hidden
as sharp corners though you

still expect the some days
to climb alongside and the height
save them — it’s storage work

later work — Esther and you
on a pony that almost remembers the dust
it carried all the way down.



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 B Poems published by Poets Wear Prada, 2016. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.
 
 
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