Artist Statement:
Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He has a wife, Vickie and a daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee whose work has appeared in hundreds of publications including Poetry Salzburg Review, Bluestem, Sheepshead Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Two Thirds North, The Red Cedar Review and The William and Mary Review. He has poems forthcoming in Broad River Review, Emrys Journal, December Magazine and The Louisiana Review..
The sky expels you.
A paper braid cloche floats on clouds.
It seems your hands
have been curved nearly forever,
swimming, flailing
against the oppressive noose
of a collapsed sun.
The children were right,
all the nights they cried
for you in fear.
Even when they held their hands,
up to you, asking to be held,
all you could do was shrug.
So much to be forgotten—
contrail ribbons and supersonic vacuum.
Now you wear a tattered hat
made of vapor and volume,
still bending toward emptiness,
becoming the mind’s eye
of every unseen storm.
But by agreeing to play,
each wrong guess
builds you one part closer
to the silent figure hanging.
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