Simon Perchik’s most recent poem to appear here was “These blades changing course” (February 2020).
Exhaustion, crowding, this dirt
needs to be tested
lets you sniff its breath for mist
and fever, is infected
and though it’s struggling
these graves were dug
as if the sky still exists
is burning underground –you monitor
the way this place pretends
it was once a sea
again and again by itself
curled around the Earth
till every stone here touched bottom
was breathing on its own
already coastline, could resist
beat back the waves you bring
as flowers, smelling from winds
with no where else to go.