*
Between the tall grasses and water holes
the next hiss would be its last
though you splash these iron bars
with no way out and wait
smell from smoke and death
–it’s a cheap grill, made for a backyard
and the need for constant water
as another word for leaving
–you burn with ashes
taking hold the emptiness
to let the fire go
become airborne :a season
among the others, fitted inside
two rivers, close to clouds
where there was none before.
• • •
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 Rosenblum Poems published by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2020. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. To view one of his interviews please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8