Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art
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    • Martha Wiseman, "Loose Ends"
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    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
  • Art
Picture

SIMON PERCHIK

*
Attack and this hillside
shows its teeth :each stone
drips with saliva

and even the glaze
can't tell the difference
-- you dig till the sun

enters at last
staggering the way each evening
is burned to the ground

laid bare in the smoke
all stones smell when struck
one against the other

and the dirt dragged away
still struggling
--you only want to share

though your hands won't dry
and each year less room
--you dig as if each hole

is filled with shoreline
could be held back
rebuilt from waves

from valleys and mountain streams
that whiten these stones
with cheeks and emptiness.


*
Still warm and the paint
darkening the way all walls
grieve --in just an hour

another coat though the floor
will cool first
lose its hold and the ground

--you're careful not to touch
where the corpse is listening
comforted with skin and bones

and gloss --over and over
that sing-along-song
where no one weeps

or remembers the words
and you let the roller drip
kept silent for so long.


*
It must welcome this light
sent up, banished and the sun
overflowing still can't wait

till morning --you will open the door
for something you're not sure, make room
the way a tree rests its branches

higher and higher and the room
kept empty for evenings
on their way back, bone-tired

hollowed out, barren, cold
and the door take in
the darkness :the dying down

and the slow, climbing turn
for which there is no word
no sound or below.


*
And though the rain has left
tired waiting for the slow descent
become your shadow reaching out

when no one looks --to lure it back
takes deception! you cover the windows
with silk and drop by drop the walls

stay damp while the sky
loses itself in your arms
--it's not your usual clouds

and you jump, afraid you'll drown
one hand held out, the other
kept empty for rain and the floor

making its way back --it works
--your shadow already lifting you
feet first, on your toes

as if it sees the sky surrounded
by other skies, in bits
and this dark place you hide.


*
As if the pump for the well
is carving her shoulders out
and the invisible stone

you will hold when it dries
broken up among the ruins
though some rocks

still squeeze one hand
too tight and the faucet
cover you with a place

that can not rest
--what you grip will be this cup
left over from the first death

no longer noon but a cramp
for which there is no potion
only her lips falling from the sky

almost empty, worn down
clings to the ground
as minutes, hours, evenings

--for years one hand
closing over the other
already a shadow

half grass, half thirst
half some vague hovering
inside your throat

--mouthful by mouthful only cold water
at last in the open
pulled up and still falling.





Simon Perchik

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


published by
The Department of English
College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
The William Paterson University of New Jersey
Copyright © 2012-2022 Map Literary
Map Literary

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  • About
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award
    • NJ High School Writing Contest
    • In Print
    • Subscribe
    • Links
    • Internship Opportunity
    • WPU MFA
  • Poetry
    • Richard Ryal
    • Sherwood Anderson
    • Mark DeCarteret
    • Dennis Hinrichsen Poetry
    • Daniel Biegelson
    • Natan Last
    • Jim Daniels Poetry
    • Michael Chang
    • D E Steward
    • Benjamin Paloff Poetry
    • David Dodd Lee
    • Isabelle Doyle
    • Kathleen Heil
    • Leonard Kress
    • Lauren Tess
    • Cesca Janece Waterfield
    • Billy Cancel Poetry
    • Scott Minar
    • Greg Glazner
    • Bruce McRae
    • Maureen Thorson
  • Fiction
    • On Experimental Fiction
    • Mark Cassidy, "How I Met My Wife"
    • Emily Trachtenberg, "Plum"
    • Hector Donovan-Gonzalez
    • Christopher Linforth, "Zia"
    • Jenessa Abrams, "You Never Wish That Upon Anyone"
    • Eros Livieratos, "On Feeling"
    • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
    • Justin Meckes, "The Gash"
    • Reb Livingston, from "Bombyonder"
    • Craig Foltz, "Without Stigma"
  • Nonfiction
    • Martha Wiseman, "Loose Ends"
    • Jan Jolly, "Through My Father's Glasses"
    • Kristina Moriconi, "Still Looking"
    • Wm. Anthony Connolly, "IGY"
    • Cal Freeman, "Loosestrife"
    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
    • Michael Roloff, "Accretion"
    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
    • Luc Sante, "Flesh and Bone"
    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
  • Art