Sunday, January 22, 2023

Richard Siken

Richard Siken looks into the distance while sitting in the Poetry Center library

Meanwhile 

  
Driving, dogs barking, how you get used to it, how you make 
                                the new streets yours. 
Trees outside the window and a big band sound that makes you feel like 
          everything's okay, 
      a feeling that lasts for one song maybe, 
                          the parentheses all clicking shut behind you. 
            The way we move through time and space, or only time. 
The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly 
                                       it's not, it's breakfast 
    and you're standing in the shower for over an hour, 
                         holding the bar of soap up to the light. 
I will keep watch. I will water the yard. 
        Knot the tie and go to work. Unknot the tie and go to sleep. 
                             I sleep. I dream. I make up things 
    that I would never say. I say them very quietly. 
                            The trees in the wind, the streetlights on, 
        the click and flash of cigarettes 
being smoked on the lawn, and just a little kiss before we say goodnight. 
     It spins like a wheel inside you: green yellow, green blue, 
                                                                     green beautiful green. 
It's simple: it isn't over, it's just begun. It's green. It's still green.

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