*

by Simon Perchik

And though it’s your hands that are cold you sleep
with slippers on, weighed down the way shadows
change places to show what death will be like

before it gets dark –even in bed you limp, the blanket
backing away and you hang on, want to be there
still standing yet you can’t remember if it’s more rain

or just that your fingers are wet from falling in love
and every time they pass your lips it’s these slippers
that save you from drowning, let you go on, caress

something that is not dressed in white, disguised
as the warm breath thrown over the headboard
smelling from cemeteries without moving your feet.

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 Osiris Poems published by box of chalk, 2017. For more information, including free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion, and Other Realities,” please visit his website at http://www.simonperchik.com.