True Love
A dog bites down on a stick of dynamite and takes off running. They are going to explode together. Imagine: making someone feel like that, making them lose their mind like that. At the bars, I used a fake name. I was as blurry and undefinable as everyone else. Equally afraid of being alone or being touched, my fears cancelled each other out. Pure ambivalence. It made me dangerous. Still, we do what we can. The barn dance was a yawn. The barn dance caller told us how to move, so it wasn’t that much fun. We got out, quick as a lamb’s tail. Two shakes. One, two. I don’t know how to say it, so I’ll say this: Something bright, then holes. Beauty pours in. Open your heart then. And if you find yourself caught under the sycamore trees in a sudden rain, drenched and thunderstruck—which would be fine—made breathless by the simplest thing, say yes. Yes, anything you. Love, love. It isn’t a word, it’s the sound a pebble makes. Some swerve to pass, some drink to win, some watch while the man strays, singing, into the ditch. Be glad that you have something to say, someone to say it to, and that you can say it until you are all worn out. A long time ago, maybe not so long, I knew a man who was slippery and morally flexible. I loved him. Sure, loved him. It lasted exactly as long as it was supposed to. I propose there is a man somewhere, chalk-faced in evening light, traveling furiously toward you—and the sun’s going down, and his windows are open, and everything’s coming over the horizon on cue. If you haven’t started preparing yourself, I strongly suggest you do. How long will it last? It’s hard to say. The captain is always silent after the ship goes down. It’s a tragedy, like everything, but the sea is only waist deep. I insist this is a lullaby.
Zeno
I knew I was getting better when the dogs at the coffee shop started leaving me alone. Dogs I didn’t know had been coming over and sitting at my feet, as if they knew I was dying. It was unnerving. They weren’t doing it anymore. And, but, or; nevertheless—I was having success with my transitions and people could track what I was saying. I was charming with my limp and cane. I was getting to the ends of my sentences. I still got everyone’s name wrong. All roads lead to Rome but Zeno says you’ll never get there. The law of diminishing returns—always advancing in smaller increments. Similarly, all roads lead away from Rome. It is a necessary requirement. I will heal, but not completely. Always approaching, never arriving. How far can I get? The doctors said I was starting to plateau, that soon enough I’d reach the limits of my recovery and it might be time for me to come to terms with that. I wasn’t entirely convinced. I was still filling in the details. Zeno rejected the existence of space and time. He argued motion was an illusion—that the arrow can never hit the target. It’s a paradox, unresolvable—instant headache. I would have taken Zeno to the bottom of the world. I imagine us standing, upside down, on the spot where all the time zones meet, and it is always now, and every step is north.
RICHARD SIKEN is a poet and painter. His book Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, selected by Louise Glück, a Lambda Literary Award, a Thom Gunn Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books are War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon Press, 2015) and I Do Know Some Things (forthcoming, Copper Canyon Press, 2025). Siken is a recipient of two Lannan Fellowships and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Read more by Richard Siken
Poem at poets.org
Poem in POETRY
Poem in the Adroit Journal