Public Republic

Simon Perchik

Photo: Alejandra Mavrovski

Because there’s only one East
loneliness seems a natural, you sit
the way astronomers focus mirrors
and your radio all night
picking up moons, planets
old songs from the 40’s –your hand
never leaves the dial
even to brush away the dim light
fallen across the table.

Even if there were two
you would still keep watch, your bed
stays in the kitchen now
unmade, fixed on some faint dawn
during the war, the pilots
asleep under their planes, comforted
and all those wings from far away
could fit in your hand now

–it’s the expectation
that makes your hand huge, swollen
–you reach for a cup
to slowly darken the walls
in a theater about to start up.

All night it’s that stained saucer
tilted side to side
as if you too once had a twin
who still can’t find the way –two suns!
–one on each side the Earth
the way this small mirror
already longs to undress you
though the first morning with no night
just started.