Poem of the Week: Scheherazade by Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake

La Voile Bleu by François Martin-Kavel

Scheherazade
Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was 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.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

This poem originally appeared in Crush (Yale University Press, 2005).

One of my favorite poems.

The opening poem, Scheherazade, from Siken’s collection Crush utterly captivates me. It’s one of my favorite collections and I reread it at least once a year. The entire book is particularly devastating, but this piece completely eviscerates me (in a gorgeous way). I poured over it. The poem feels fully realized and yet like a dream, as the title of the work is after the main character in One Thousand and One Nights which transposes this poem into a fantasy. The speaker is musing from a liminal place of fantasy while craving a story. There’s beauty in this poem, with metaphors that pack a bite. The urgency is unparalleled. I could swoon over poem more, or I could just share this Rumpus deep dive that expounds my thoughts perfectly.

Side note: I started a new Instagram account. Wanna be friends?