Richard Siken

[from Crush by Richard Siken]

Visible World

    Sunlight pouring across your skin, your shadow
                                                            flat on the wall.
        The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.
You had not expected this,
               the bedroom gone white, the astronomical light
                                               pummeling you in a stream of fists.
    You raised your hand to your face as if
               to hide it, the pink fingers gone gold as the light
streamed straight to the bone,
    as if you were the small room closed in glass
                                         with every speck of dust illuminated.
    The light is no mystery,
the mystery is that there is something to keep the light
                                                                 from passing through.


This short volume of poems is as good as a great film and better than most novels published these days.