As if a comet unable to fly
makes a path in the snow’
never
far from my shoulders
—step by step I string the sky
with stones that cling to my shoes
then melt the way a last breath
heads home underwater
—every few hours the sea overflows
sends back its dead
covers the Earth all at once
—I wear on
so my footsteps can stop
without blinding each other
the way sometimes a trucker
will take the curve with just the dims
will rest at a diner, parked
with the engine kept turning over.
Even comets want to be spared
and each stone that will lose its life
then tossed in water made from cries
and winding down.
You have heard these stars.
They are the warm breezes
who just before they lost their life
seemed to go on forever
—in their stillness you hear the snow
nailing their veins to your feet
and because it's night
you can hear the trucks
that wanted to live forever.
Bio: Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.