Not with the light itself
lifting this page closer
though the breeze already left
–you need glasses, the kind
crystal-gazers use
and for centuries would weep
to birds that go on living
–cockpit-glass! pressed
against your forehead
by wings and distances
–in the end the book too
will lose its slack, approach
with the window in front
closed and even its shadow
had no chance to escape.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poetry has appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His latest book is titled “Family of Man” (Cholla Needles Library 2021).