Simon Perchik is an American poet with published work dating from the 1960s. Perchik worked as an attorney before his retirement in 1980. Educated at New York University, Perchik now resides in East Hampton, New York. Library Journal has referred to Perchik as “the most widely published unknown poet in America.” Best known for his highly personal, non-narrative style of poetry, Perchik’s work has appeared in numerous books, websites, and print magazines, including The New Yorker, Partisan Review, Poetry, The Nation, North American Review, Weave Magazine, Beloit, and CLUTCH.
You still land belly-down
though the mailbox has no key
—what you yank is an envelope

and your hand already in flames
—why now these patrols
waving the children back

while you gag on the gust
and what’s left from your hand
—why only in the rain

then headlong the way each step
moves closer to the sea
becomes those rocks that expect sacrifice

and where you can be found
terrorized by streets boldly in print
yours and theirs, waiting in the open

—you vomit as if its stench
could clog the wound all these years
between one letter and another.

*
Now that the sky is homeless
you make your own season
and each morning for just a minute

the snow is not mentioned
—even in summer you set aside
one window for tracks, covered over

and the wind hiding in bells
—you use this makeshift silence
the way a rifle is still aimed

with a deep breath and hold
—it’s not for long, your season
sets up and from its rivers

a blackness flowing, gathering
first as a rain that is not the sky
—it’s new for you, a sister-season

open and bleeding :a minute
rescued from the others
and at each funeral it shows up

ready to party, still young
though you cry out loud for a mouth
for the air that will not come.

*
What more proof do you need! jagged
left behind—a beautiful stone
torn to pieces and near its heart

a tiny rock half drift, half moonlight
that blossomed to become the opposite shore
—all these years in the open

though every wave still smells from stone
the way this sea from its start
was never sure, even now a doubt

splashing as your blood or throat
or better yet next time at breakfast
reach out with just your breath

and god-like touch the boiling tea
hold up the evidence, the first wave
and the emptiness it counted on.

*
Runners train by it, both my fists
and at the finish line
snap open the way each new moon

still unbeaten uses this flourish
to poke inside these stones
—you can’t hide much longer

and years mean nothing now
dropping back from exhaustion
dragging the dirt behind

—wherever you are I can find you
handful by handful broken apart
for just two fingers calling out

and in front the unyielding ribbon
suddenly dark I can snatch
the breath letting me through.

*
Battered though its wings
disappear under your eyelids
and more smoke—this lever

lost its touch, wants out :rusts
the way this wall is kept in place
pulled down on all sides

by old wiring and wrong turns
—always one slice that can’t be saved
though you wear gloves

yank the smoldering cord
so that still warm jacket
is torn open, lets the sun fall

as rain and later—this toaster
reeks from your head thrown back
to see if both eyes move

and the other slice the North Sea
pressing against your hand
for a little more time.