The oldest shout is
orange :this moon
almost in reach —each autumn the horizon
moves us closer to one
another
lets the still warm
evening
work its way through
our sleeves
—I can
feel the Earth swelling
when the moon is
filled, my heart
shaking to deep red
darken along some
riverbank
almost to its
headwaters, almost overhead
and the moonlight
harden into continents
rushing toward each
other
toward mountains that
lean
as if still alive,
smell from winter
from sending your
hand, then taking it down.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan
Review, The New Yorker, Tipton Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Rafts
(Parsifal Editions, 2007) is his most recent
collection. Family of Man (Pavement Saw Press)
is scheduled for Fall 2009. For more information, including his essay “Magic,
Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his
website at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet.