Simon Perchik
You wipe the way the moon
once warmed the Earth
caressed your arm
with shapelessness
and the fever left over
from some fiery beginning
half shoreline, half
waves still flaring out
staking their claim
and memory –inside this path
a brain, left behind
to deal with the scent
smoldering leaves give off
–you sniff for stars
that have no light yet
only the fragrance stones replace
endlessly cover the dead
with leaves and these dried flowers
everywhere burning in small piles
–what you smell is a smoke
that can only remember.