Simon Perchik

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The spider on this curb
brooding --rain soaked cars
from both directions --it stares

at the giant whose roadway
is already hung in place and my tire
flat, stopped struggling

--at the huge tow truck forever on call
blinking toward its prey
will drag it off for later

and the spider reaches for my hand
as if this street had snapped
and in the dark corners
I can lower myself, my fingers

arch, each raindrop
heavier than stepping stones
--I drop the phone, the delicate wire

already waving goodbye :a trembling current
peeling my hand into thread
wrapping the tire as if each horizon
could strap my heart in place
for later, for the Earth and splashing.

*          *          *

Still alone --so many rings
though the first would cover
all these deaths :the leaves

as salmon branch by branch
return again the wreath
almost touching my hand

--I hold out each finger
watch their colors leaping
and water to breathe again.

Death will be sudden
without the usual pledge or rapids
or cliffs or stones broken off

--I will throw away the Earth
and keep its stump, slanting
the way all streams lean --I feel my leaves
against the rough ground, some

are bleeding, most
already dead, curled up as if a heart
could fall far from its fire --no one sees
the dark circling inside, growing old

or the funeral thrashing to reach
the spot no one forgets
--trees come here, I come here
dragging my shoes filled with water
with stones, one scraping the other
and following alone.

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Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Rafts (Parsifal Editions) is his most recent collection. Family of Man (Pavement Saw Press) is scheduled for Fall 2009. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at <www.geocities.com/simonthepoet>.