Richard Siken

“All of us are trapped in our skins and drowning in gravity.”

Somewhere in the middle

“But there’s a litany of dreams that happens somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands and record stores. Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one. We have been very brave, we have wanted to know the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes. This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstretched arms.”

~ Excerpt from “Snow and Dirty Rain” by Richard Siken

New York, USA | October, 2010

Crush

Scheherazade

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them warm in clothes again.
How it was too late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
There, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

~ Richard Siken from the book “Crush”