simon perchik

I still dress in the fire
in a ceiling bulb
letting off steam, the walls
almost standing --a pull-string

as once a letter could chain your hand
and you sift for shoes, the green tie
--it takes hours to button one sleeve
the other folds into paper

midair, leaping from a mirror
deformed by panic :a fireball
yanking a dog's collar

and under the shirt the Earth
on its feet --my hand can't open.


Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Rafts (Parsifal Editions) is his most recent collection. Family of Man
(Pavement Saw Press) is scheduled for Fall 2009. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet