Even without a caress its petals
wait, try more red than usual
then sweets, sent along with the scent
from the latest hillside till one grave
blossoms before the others
and you are at last alone
beside a single afternoon, holding on
though your shadow is already airborne
rising out the Earth as moonlight
still warm on your lips, impatient
the way a headstone is no longer carried
once it turns full length to embrace
lift your arms around it, pressing them
against its breasts, its lifeless throat
for whispers, for kisses and bitter air.
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 Reflection in a Glass Eye published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2020. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. To view one of his interviews please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8
