Still, it's gone

Still, it’s gone and though the candle
is still day to day
you can tell from the melt

how much love there was
—what you touch is the long fall
where a sea should be

listening for streams
the way these matches
are following each other

striking the Earth by cupping your hands
around its emptiness
—over and over opening the ground

for smoke as if after so many times
clump by clump
you could get it all out.









Simon Perchik‘s poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere. He lives in East Hampton, NY. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, including free e-books, and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities,” see www.simonperchik.com

See more of his work in 7.1 and 6.2 and 2.3 and 2.3