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Published: Wed Jul 1 2009
Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convirtiéndose en characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
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By the handful, in tenderness
yet your shadow erupts
and by nightfall holds on

one shoulder then the other
spun as if this dirt would find
the wind it came here for

circle up and cover this place
with your finger touching
the grave skies grow into

and never let go—a parting gesture
collecting darkness with another
helps you leave the way the dead

fill their arms with the Earth
carried around as morning and higher
in stones they know by heart.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan ReviewThe Nation, AGNI, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, free e-books and his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. (updated 4/2016)

 

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