Simon Perchik: [It has Nothing to Do With the Banjo

Simon Perchik
[IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BANJO –THIS CHAIR]

It has nothing to do with the banjo—this chair
aches for wheels that will rust, wobble
the way riverbeds grow into something else

—where there was a mouth, there’s now wet dirt
and with a single gulp the Earth is drained
by a compass that points to where it’s from

and you are eased room to room
as an endless sob drying in your throat
—you sing along till side by side

each wheel becomes that afternoon
that folded one hand over the other
as if for the last time.

Simon Perchik, [It has nothing to do with the banjo] (Poetry) is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Osiris Poems published by box of chalk, 2017. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. His poems [ITS SHADOW IS HELPLESS HERE] and [THERE IS SKIN EVEN THE SKY] appear in past issues of Cleaver.