It’s when you widen your lips
that the air hasn’t the strength
to say it has nothing left
only the word for cars
moving slowly one behind the other
—it’s useless—it’s also November
and she is dead and the rain
smells from the word
that let the fires go out.
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 Osiris Poems published by box of chalk, 2017. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.