Public Republic

Simon Perchik

Photo: jimkster

A plain paper bag yet in its night
this popcorn needs more salt
— a fragrant grip and I am Hercules
muscle-bound, shaking the screen
the actors giants, grotesque

— each finger has its own cry
huddles beside the others
the way mass graves are opened
reach out for a voice –lips move
and the floor slopes toward that mouth
till nothing can stop the fall.

I pound my seat the way all light
stops its wandering, dims
waits to be rescued, then devoured
— count the emptied rows
and the same red, unshielded bulbs
lit over those two doors
where for the first time
fire is expected, the ceiling

drifts closer, smells
from stars left out to die: blooms
are forbidden here — in this dark
I take hold some great arch
that exploded, one half
slumped over the other
as if they hear a faint sound
no one has heard before.