Simon Perchik, Celestial Recess 3

While the sun spreading out
in the light from your shirt
wrung dry, its cuffs rolled back

–shores are born this way
reaching around, even here
its sleeves are still visible

and in your eyes
that first emptiness
in all directions at once :light

takes forever now
looks for you as if it
was once the only color

and nothing to end the silence
the way each night the galaxies
gather up the darkness

begin the world again
and each morning
rests at the edge, half listening

half in the open
pulling it nearer, loose
and in your arms at last.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. For more information, including his essay, “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities,” visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.