The 13^th WR

***

Barely coating the corner trim
this dark green must think it's summer
and pinecones shimmering
till the knots too show through

-- even the air, back and forth
till a thin breeze
warms the wood, covers your arm
still coming out the ground
and opening outward

-- this paint will take years
dries the way I move to a new place
-- first, it can be sure this house
will be pulled by a river
that's been forgotten
then slowly opens the sky around you.

***

Between these two fingers the air
smells from petals and air
and nothing touches anything

-- without a sound, without their lips
and the dead still eat without hands
scraping their lips

against that goodbye whose arms
are always empty, it's stillness
all they hear in those few seconds

and their heart growing colors
-- between my fingers a door
almost ashes now open to the cold.

***

This window sweetening the air
hangs as if some fruit
would light your room again

-- even the walls won't break off
fixed on a window that rises
to be lost, its tears

falling one upon the other
go over it slowly -- in time
your kisses and the glass shoe

you see through
-- in time your foot will harden
take hold, become the branch

that rings the world
never letting go
the last thing you saw

-- in time your whispers
further than great mountains
lay exhausted in the snow

just stop and the air thins out
loses its way -- a fragrance
saddened by the white thread

still graceful in the sun
-- by the hair and thighs
and mouths that fit exactly.

- Simon Perchik