You pick away at the Earth
as if your grave was filled
with the wait for flowers :one foot
already pleased, the other
still wrapped in dirt
weighed down stone by stone
the way fruit is ripened
keyed up and seaworthy, is lowered
into a wooden box
that never leaves shore
just the loading and unloading
though step by step
you overflow from a single rock
broken into twigs
coming by for your mouth
–you want to walk out, trade
make a deal tit for tat
the dry grass that has no blossoms yet.
Author Bio:
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.