Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013).

Before this door had a chance
your eyes crushed it though the thud
infected only one lid, staggers across

as if its fever was enough to burn down
your forehead trying to stay open
for the fire with nothing in it

and lift you from beneath
–it’s a small place, a few walls
a mountain hanging from a sheet

stained by snow, by corners
each day colder, a valley deeper
cleared for whoever the bed

can carry –your legs pitted from winds
all day scanning your skull
for its madness, for what’s left

where your cheeks opened
for sunlight and melting ice –a nothing bed
the kind you find only with X-rays

when the film dries, shows one side
left in darkness, the other
infected with despair and falling.