Poem – Just a toy though the string… (By Simon Perchik)

 

Just a toy though the string

is still afraid, tied as if inside

a weightlessness is pulling it

closer and closer and can’t let go

caged in on all sides

by the color blue and emptiness

 

–a trapped balloon, banded

the way all buoys spread out

and the channel lurking below

unravels as rain that has no water yet

 

–it’s always been like this

at carnivals, balloons by the hundreds

coming from a single fountain

that never falls back

 

–you can’t take in enough air

–your arms leak and you drown

in the overcast that has no shadow yet

not yet touching down in the cry

from your hands over your heart.

 

Author Bio:
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.