simon perchik

Her loom as if some wounds
can never close, are dragged
and the lamb --how soft death is

how white! all at once
it covers the sky
fills with this vague tearing apart

--documents, pages, rags
and she is combing out the lamb
from its fountain and torn again

--her fingers can't close, pulled down
by a waterfall :each strand
the mark on its throat --the lamb

put back together :her child
--over and over she rocks some crib
as if its blanket could break apart

and a little further off the sun
keep warm, nursed on the tiny stream
held in her arms --she sings to it

wringing it --inside, slowly
more tears and the years ahead.


Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.