*

Simon Perchik

*

Could be this mop shimmering

the way bottom stones are soothed

by streams smelling from volcanoes

and wood, though the floor

is burning your feet with moonlight

–could just as easily be this pail

circling for hidden leaks and seashells

scented with water, and the room

that has nothing more to lose

is looking for a place to dry

that is not your mouth or the air

you dead need to put out the fires

by pressing down on your lips

where there’s no trace or a corner

that will close by itself, become dirt,

embrace the long, wooden handle

all night side by side as if you still hear

the falling back into silence, and your arms.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The B Poems published by Poets Wear Prada, 2016. For more information, including free e-books, and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities,” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Editor’s Note: Image of snail shells (Pexel photo) and the National Park Hawaii Volcanoes Lava Flow.