Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but thatโs the dealioโyouโre a train and Iโm a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.
Richard SikenI wouldnโt kill your pony. Iโd like to believe it, anyway. Iโd like to believe I wouldnโt drag you out in to the woods and leave you there, either. So far, it hasnโt come up.
Richard SikenI'm saying your name in the grocery store, I'm saying your name on the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal covered with frost, your name like a music that's been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud, a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails in wind and the slap of waves on the hull.
Richard SikenHello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.
Richard Siken