"Without a riverbed you lean..."

Simon Perchik
Published on April 19, 2018

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Without a riverbed you lean
feel your way through this dirt
as if it’s her voice you’re after 

–for a long time, eyes closed
you empty the Earth with your mouth
darkening this built-up moss

sent off for a stone near water
stretching out to smooth the silence
hidden the way innocent bells

were placed along the shore
with no light to take away
or welcome rocks around her body. 
 

Genre: 
Poetry
Author Bio: 

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 Osiris Poems published by box of chalk, 2017. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. 

Issue: 
61