Richard Siken: “Unfinished Duet”

Photographer Unknown, Unfinished Duet

• • At first there were too many branches
    so he cut them and then it was winter.
    He meaning you. Yes. He would look out
    the window and stare at the trees that once
    had too many branches and now seemed
    to have too few. Is that all? No, there were
    other attempts, breakfasts: plates served,
    plates carried away. He doesn’t know
    what to do with his hands. He likes the feel
    of the coffeepot. More than the hacksaw?
    Yes, and he likes flipping the chairs,
    watching them fill with people. He likes
    the orange juice and toast of it, and waxed
    floors in any light. He wants to be tender
    and merciful. That sounds overly valorous.
    Sounds like penance. And his hands?
    His hands keep turning into birds and
    flying away from him. Him being you.
    Yes. Do you love yourself? I don’t have to
    answer that. It should matter. He has a
    body but it doesn’t matter, clean sheets
    on the bed but it doesn’t matter. This is
    where he trots out his sadness. Little black
    cloud, little black umbrella. You miss
    the point: the face in the mirror is a pale
    and naked hostage and no one can tell
    which room he’s being held in. He wants
    in, he wants out, he wants the antidote.
    He stands in front of the mirror with a net,
    hoping to catch something. He wants to
    move forward into the afternoon because
    there is no other choice. Everyone in this
    room got here somehow and everyone in
    this room will have to leave. So what’s left?
    Sing a song about the room we’re in?
    Hammer in the pegs that fix the meaning
    to the landscape? The voice wants to be
    a hand and the hand wants to do something
    useful. What did you really want? Someone
    to pass this with me. You wanted more.
    I want what everyone wants. He raises
    the moon on a crane for effect, cue the violins.
    That’s what the violins are for. And yes,
    he raises the moon on a crane and scrubs it
    until it shines. So what does it shine on?
    Nothing. Was there no one else? Left-handed
    truth, right-handed truth, there’s no pure
    way to say it. The wind blows and it makes
    a noise. Pain makes a noise. We bang on
    the pipes and it makes a noise. Was there
    no one else? His hands keep turning into
    birds, and his hands keep flying away
    from him. Eventually the birds must land.

—Richard Siken, Unfinished Duet, Crush

Born in New York City in February of 1967, Richard Siken is an American painter, poet, and filmmaker. He studied at the University of Arizona, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and later a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry.

Richard Siken is one of the co-founders and editors of Spork Press, established in 2001. Besides publishing its “Spork” literary magazine, the press produces novels and chapbooks, some of which were released in serial form. Siken received a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment of the Arts and two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants.

Influenced by the 1991 death of his boyfriend, Richard Siken wrote his collection of poems “Crush” which was published by Yale University Press.. A powerful literary work that is confessional, gay, and infused with eroticism, “Crush” won the 2004 Yale Younger Poets Competition, and received the Lambda Literary Award for “Gay Men’s Poetry” in 2005, and the Thom Gunn Award from Publishing Triangle in 2006. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Siken’s most recent work, his second book of poems, “War of the Foxes”, was released from Copper Canyon Press in 2015. With interwoven lyrics, fables, portraits and landscapes, Siken confronts the ways in which we look to art for meaning and purpose. The poems in “The War of the foxes” show the fallacies inherent in a search for truth, both in the world outside and within the self.

Richard Siken currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.