Untitled Suite, 4

Water doesn’t help, to bathe
you leave the door open
unclog the room, let its breeze

drain and between the riverbanks
a sky no star can climb
without falling off in pieces

broken apart from emptiness
and the endless plunge
back into a sea half shadow

half some overgrown field
that reappears in the hallway
as dust and then nothing –after all

these faucets face each other
are not used to loneliness
or leaks falling from windows

–you have to trust these leaks
when inch by inch a hole
through another hole

that has something to do with a ledge
one behind the other
and cries for air, more air.

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Untitled Suite, 1
Untitled Suite, 2
Untitled Suite, 3
Untitled Suite, 5

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.