Simon Perchik
One cup kept empty and side by side
as if forgiveness is a service
due when you shake the dust off
and the other overflows with coffee
heats your mouth with lips
that blacken when one hand
is grasped by the other and the spill
towed to where the dead overflow
as evenings :an entitlement
that returns the darkness
before the sun comes back
brings the light that once was water
fills this small cup with a morning
you will clear with a soft rag
holding it close to the wooden table.
Bio
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris,
The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Family of Man Poems published by
Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library, 2021. For more information including free e-books and
his essay "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" please visit his website at
simonperchik.com
To view one of his interviews please follow this link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8