Simon Perchik
Even so it's the darkness, loosened
circling down as the only meal
you dead can swallow –a single gulp
and you are nourished the way the drowned
still cling to a rope that's not yet an arm
–miners learn this, they train
where there are corners, taught to feel
for an opening in the rock out all alone
that will become the night after night
–you have a chance! your shadow
is already near the surface, draining this mountain
for its ashes once they're finished , eat
–everything here is evening and you
sinking on and on into the Earth
more than emptiness and fingertips.
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