You hold this stone to your cheek
as if you hear the bed
widening and a second pillow
keeping the other half warm
though its bell-scented blanket
is filled with driftwood and snow
covering the Earth each night
with the arm you sleep on
–she wanted the room cold
calling out from a corner
the way your shadow turns
still faces the wall to remember
where by holding on to stop!
stop it! just stop it! it’s the window
that’s open and breathing.
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 Gibson Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2019. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.
© 2019, Simon Perchik
Halfway Down the Stairs 