Simon Perchik

You expect the noon-alarm at City Hall
—it's the tangled siren from nowhere
skidding corners, trucks and nozzles
and when it's over

the usual inspection, who started it
who—you almost hear the hoses
clawed open, marking off where the sea
is buried—you're never sure

what's wave, what's warm from the fire
—all you know is that coastlines
and fright have too much in common
with pastures, how panic
still excites, leads back the years ago
eaten to the bone and you

can hardly breathe, cover your ears
the way a thin plume dies out and hillsides
pulling up grass, breezes—it's always noon
—you dread the one minute leaping overhead

from the one time to the closer time
—you almost hear a plane, the ladders
and smoke falling away from you

—you can't move
and the pain that once could heal
suddenly becomes a cry
without holding on to your hands
or the world.