To calibrate this stone
By Simon Perchik

to calibrate this stone
you break the sun just so
part shoreline, part darkness
where the Earth survives
by holding on to your shadow
as if it had no mouth
and what you hear are seabirds
covered with cries that circle
as rain and dust and nightfall

—it's an ancient gesture
half salt, half waves
and nothing inside the stone
that can reach so far

yet you let it drop
with an undisguised precision
that blows open your fingers
and one stone toward another

that is not the sea
not the grass among these flowers
nothing, not the overcast all night
falling from some woman's dress
and you can't hear it raining.