To the dirt that no longer moves
you offer a mask the way a flower
over and over is readied for mornings

where time begins again as stars
sensing honey and more darkness
—by evening your death

will be used to footsteps one by one
broken off a great loneliness
returning row by row as the small stones

cut out for the mouth and eyes
to sweeten it, ask
where you are going by yourself.

Published in the December 1, 2017 issue: View Contents
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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 Gibson Poems (Cholla Needles, 2019).

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