Public Republic

Simon Perchik

Photo: qmnonic

…the final piece tonight… and the Earth
made whole –the announcer slows, signs off
by lowering her voice, then Mahler
to help her with the dead …will leave the air…

for its underworld and we be swept
over that silence, downstream, washed
in a darkness that stays, has no breath
or place to grow though by morning

one hand is always colder, swollen –all night
one arm weaker –you too have held your hand
and against the other hear the ground
give way and always that song older
than darkness –you too
deeper, deeper till nothing but the voices.

By morning you reach for the wall
as if it were the sun, would rise
and the blanket a great wing again
bright feathers and the last piece

take hold :the sky the size every child
will recognize in the dark :the cold mouth
that’s hidden again and the voices
the boneless song
carried by children not yet dead.