Jun 282010
by Simon Perchik
You don’t yell across a tree
the way streams have one shore
for darkness –what you do
is give back :decorate, float fruit
and ornaments already changing into hours
–you nurse with gifts, warm lights
and under each branch as if you come
with roots hanging by a thread
–you make the tree a woman, an urge
to hear the scream, Let me
and her child given this night
to be born again, tearing apart
by myself, the small cardboard box
wrapped with a ribbon still damp
and cast across the waters.
