No. 8

Winter 2005

I keep looking down cups -- the waiters
don't joke anymore, the customers yell
-- I'm not sure where to dig next

as if you are still turning your head
in some doorway -- waving
only tears its sides
and crumbles

-- I need a shovel :an envelope with seeds
as stones are baked underground :flowers
throwing their colors on the stake

-- I have to guess the spots.
Sometimes I dig without knocking
without a yardstick, each hole
till its clay is fired :ancient jars
measured by remembering those thin envelopes
and their predictions :blooms
bubbling from this cup -- each sugar-packet
emptied half by mistake, half in garden
half waving back

-- I have to guess the distance, to dig
without breathing
or turning the ring on my finger
-- I have to look for cups :your eyes
trapped in the ruins, the surrounding fire.

Copyright 2005, Simon Perchik

nidus is an online publication supported by the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh's English Department.