Poetry of Issue #7        Page 41

 *

The hand that is too heavy
once lifted planes, suns
now wears a glove to a bed

that knows all about darkness
and the emptiness waiting inside
where your feebleminded fingertips

no longer can fold in
then yank as if a sheet
would open and just this hand

make its descent side by side
the warmth smelling from breasts
and afternoons spreading out

though now their sunlight
circles the Earth as ashes
–you pack this glove each night

the way a brace is locked in place
to hold on, take root
without air and now you.

  Simon Perchik