Poem – By Simon Perchik

A click and its likeness

can’t change, curled

the way rain yellows

though you hold on

almost make out the grin

that could be yours

–it’s been years, minutes

and even with your arms apart

you have forgotten the smell

the fleece-lined gloves

filled with dry leaves

half paper, half iron

half pinned to this snapshot

still bleeding from a thumbtack

and your shoulders

–you don’t recognize the hand

left holding up the sky

to look for the other

bringing it a morning

ripped from wings and mountainside

that can’t close or open

or dry :the rust

still waving, gutting the cheeks

whatever day it was.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review,

The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, 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.