Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Perchik: *

© Cynthia Reeser, Femme Fatale

*
By Simon Perchik

And though your shadow still broods
the camera is used to not knowing
how near you are, following

aimless and alongside a crater
that is neither the center
nor the sky your eye remembers

is already shut, measuring
what comes out, what didn’t
—you don’t have to group anything

or anymore—there’s no film
it’s missing, stars are missing
today is missing, the ground is missing.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Family of Man (Pavement Saw Press) is scheduled for Fall 2009. For more information, including his essay, "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities," as well as a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet.