These windows know all about lakes
hiding among the dead –by instinct
the glass freezes, just so
and slowly you carve two initials
as if the name underneath
would follow the way a small hole
heats the ice, lures the fish closer
taking hold though the glare
is already marshland, drains
where one finger let go
the other and the room fills
counts on you to come.
*
This bloom still reckless, its heat
breaking into the furious hum
bugs use for melting snow
–there’s no interest in romance
though every winter now
is warmed, takes hold your hand
by brushing against the dirt
risks its place to lure you, naked
in front the house, her breasts
surrounded and across your tongue
a lingering darkness welcomes them
knows nothing why your fingers smell
from avalanche and salt
and never had that taste for sweets
moving mouth to mouth
snatching things up, louder and louder
certain this frost is frost, named
so soon after its birth and yours.
*
Hopeless! you add more salt
the way another spoonful
rows you across, the spray
clouding over with shoreline
–this soup has to be heated again
spread out as if night after night
you need a bigger pot
already with its darkness
caked on to these stars coming by
so early –to the same place
and for a second time are trembling
cling without touching your face.
*
You reach into that darkness
stars return for, are cooled
and yet you open the mail
slowly so in each envelope
the letter folding over and over
still falls out as mist
covers the ground
almost to a boil –you retrace
the way the blind find shelter
and with just your fingertips
empty the small fire
hidden behind the others
waiting for its shadow
cut off from home
and at the slightest touch.
*
Splash is how this stone
remembers squeezing your hand
then letting go, covers the ground
with seawater though you
can’t taste the salt
and inside each embrace
the first thunderclap and shrug
no longer dries, your shoulders
falling now as loneliness
then sand –you listen
the way all marble is crushed
drowns from the same gesture
that takes you arm in arm
bathes you tighter and tighter
for pebbles and caring.
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 Osiris Poems published by boxofchalk, 2017. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.