"Fractal Leaves" by Andrew Neighbour Neighbour©2003

Instead these leaves
as so often a snapshot falls out
and no one remembers who
is yellow and brown and loose —we squint

because the gust across her eyes
blurred what she saw too, the tree
shapeless, passed around in the half-light
that tries to hear as every now and then
from some thin ledge the sun
could be heard all the way down
louder and louder, afraid.

Instead the leaves —graveyard roses
following my corpse, my skull
smashed apart by the butterfly
hiding under my brain, its wings
passed hand to hand :her picture

falls always on a slant, hazy, cold
—after every funeral the albums
sag, imagine a wind and wobble :one leaf

heavier than the others, yellow
and brown and grey from attic dust
and still her eyes as if for a kiss
fall closer, clearer, instead these leaves
through my hands and family.

BIO: Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Readers interested in learning more are invited to read Magic, Illusion and Other Realities at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet, a site which lists a complete bibliography. Email: simon@hamptons.com