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Simon Perchik |
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[Untitled] I'll unwrap the suit in case there's a wedding or I'm invited to the city morgue --what's ahead likes something new. I'll re-set my watch, wind it the way a fresh harness brushes a horse --only a warm knife can scrape just the pain from bread from this butter no longer sweet harder than wax --I'll hold the worn-out side like a page read again and again in a room kept cold. As if words too can go bad. I'll keep the window open. Who knows when the dark wants to leave --all night it walks on my blanket and aimless mourners reading side to side will follow the corpse for years --the crisp, linen suit! and the thin tie. No, I won't hang myself or set a place. Who would come to this darkness for old bread except the morning, always starving, in a hurry. I'll unpack, unpack --my fingers will bleed from string tighter than gunpowder boxed and labeled and warnings from ahead :the suit has that same label sewn to get a better foothold to cover the heart stiff from the cold --what's ahead is always sweating past. I use that heat. I loosen the door in case there's a footstep or a bow to unwrap. [Untitled] A simple bow :my arms as ribbon will point to what's inside hammering --grease-caked rope knotted for my highwire act wrapped around a raft splintering, rocks everywhere. I hang on, low clouds, thunder the sunset falling off the Earth, feathers left and right :not one star sinks to the bottom --my arms outcasts, shredded :the two sails Noah forgot --I'm kept from the shore to dig only in backyards where the wells hide as Jews were buried, like water used to pipes and sledges and creaking clinging to water their only home in this world --I hang on as if my heart too a well, tainted by a uniform, by banners and boots waving, oiling even the ditches even the children --who drinks this water! I only want to find them to drain the ditch again let out the smoke --to rope my arms around and around as a sail sees a raft breathe again --a water still burning the tiny socks the shoes. I hang on till my feet are sore --I make a simple fist :a knot for the rope lowered into the dirt :a stake to measure my own heart as if I were packing an empty glass were leaving a country for good, wandering again with water so heavy it bends. |