Pulling this bowl to your lips
as if traction was needed
though it must know by now
why you dig with the same whisper
that once beat back the wind
and the sky changing direction
—you lift with what became
the moon, still crawling in its cage
one end to the other, that no longer
struts in the open, is terrified by air
wants to cool and in your throat
crumbles from exhaustion and splashing
—you make a spray so this spoon
will empty in your arms overflowing
as grass and so many fingers.
is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Now in his nineties, he continues to work, and his most recent collection is The Osiris Poems (box of chalk, 2017). For more information, including free e-books and his essay entitled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities,” please visit his website: www.simonperchik.com