By Simon Perchik
With your mouth closed
swallow though this rain
is already rain and further on
—you have a taste for darkness
fill your belly the way the Earth
each night escapes as a small hole
clings to one hillside
carried by another—you become
its grave, eat without fingers
without knees or the headlong dive
this dirt is used to, held down
and looking for more rain
for shoreline starting out
not yet a whisper, lost
cleared away and for your lips.
*
These bricks reheated
remember circling up
sifting the smoke
for smoke not yet stars
still inside, terrified
by its darkness—chimneys
know to focus the sky closer
as the night that comes due
blackens this hillside
already in place
brought down from under
no longer red—they aim
the way each shadow
leans against your heart
tries to warm itself
in grasses and your hands
made bigger, so slowly
nothing can save you.
*
This fire escape once outside
already knows the risk
yet it’s the tenement
abandoned, clinging to a street
fallen to its death
as sunlight, still in the open
—the sun is not enough
two are needed, they calm
each other and side by side
—two suns! mouth to mouth
the way all wings open
wave to the dead
even with your eyes closed
the morning larger than usual
the fire that is your home.
*
This rain has no moisture left, falls
as the light from bells
struck from behind
the way all hillsides
are hollowed out for stars
no brighter than this grass
though these graves never know
where next, they listen
for pieces, reminded
by how the first sun
broke apart—they hear it
in the dried up warmth
for which your shadow is made
—what they hear
no longer remembers
your heart was where
it was safe
and before your heart
waves that started its cry
toward the second sun
and then another, then another
and yet this rain comes back
even without a sky
comes as in the beginning
in splendor, not yet a morning
on the over and over thirst
still not allowed in the open.
*
Still uneven, this dirt
was built from leftovers
that never dry, smoothed
then fills your chest
with salt, used again
as shoreline and thirst
though you lower your lips
for the finishing touch
not yet swallowed in anger
—what you bury is the Earth
this time in pieces, unsure
where the mouth goes
once made into a rain
already dust
that doesn’t bother anymore.
