Poem – You pick away at the Earth… (By Simon Perchik)

 

You pick away at the Earth

as if your grave was filled

with the wait for flowers :one foot

 

already pleased, the other

still wrapped in dirt

weighed down stone by stone

 

the way fruit is ripened

keyed up and seaworthy, is lowered

into a wooden box

 

that never leaves shore

just the loading and unloading

though step by step

 

you overflow from a single rock

broken into twigs

coming by for your mouth

 

–you want to walk out, trade

make a deal tit for tat

the dry grass that has no blossoms yet.

 

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.