Richard Siken, “Saying Your Names”

On the recommendation of one Lola Bertha Pellegrino, Esq. I recently purchased two Richard Siken books, Crush and War of the Foxes; inspired by Charlotte, I sent many screenshots and excerpts to friends, hoping they would pick up telepathically on what those excerpts meant to me. The words themselves tended to fall into the “ajksndfjaksdnf” category of vocalized emotions.

This excerpt is fairly straightforward and mostly made me lol:

But it was Lola’s favorite poem — the one that inspired her to recommend the book, I think — that I sent in full by email and by text, hoping to pass along the inspiration that had led me to buy the book and then inspired me to read and re-read the same few lines over and over again, feeling quite strongly that this was a poem that benefited from the “two steps forward, one steps back” approach to reading.

Here is just one passage I may be thinking of every day from now until the end of time:

Makes a cathedral, him pressing against
me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe
his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me
like stars. Names of heat and names of light,
names of collision in the dark, on the side of the
bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen
on jeans and hands and backs of matchbooks
that then got lost. Names like pain cries, names
like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,
names forbidden or overused. Your name like
a song I sing to myself, your name like a box
where I keep my love, your name like a nest
in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the
sea of love — O now we’re in the sea of love!
Your name like detergent in the washing machine.
Your name like two X’s like punched-in eyes,
like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter,
your name with two X’s to mark the spots,
to hold the place, to keep the treasure from
becoming ever lost.

Who would you send this poem to, if you were the kind of person who sent poetry? Is the answer “everybody”? Same!!