though your shadow is already airborne
rising out the Earth as moonlight
still warm on your lips, impatient
the way a headstone is no longer carried
once it turns full length to embrace
lift your arms around it, pressing them
against its breasts, its lifeless throat
for whispers, for kisses and bitter air.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most
recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For
more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion
and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.