Poem By SIMON PERCHIK

Poem By SIMON PERCHIK

*

Though there’s no leak your hand

at every turn makes the adjustment

takes hold the way this wrench

begins as mountainside, workable

picked up and the pebble dragged off

circles down, carving out her name

and from your mouth the stutter

tighter, tighter –it’s all about the water

isn’t it? a spill in that slow descent

streams still trace, first

to break apart then colder, colder

looking around at what escaped

and what was captured, taken away

to remind your voice how every word

is spelled, is stone drained from stone

struggling in ravines and for a long time

an absence that that is not water

pulling you back with these two fingers.

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

The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.