By Richard Siken

    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 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.

• Living
• Relationships

Poet Bio

Richard Siken is a poet, painter, filmmaker, and an editor at Spork Press. Siken is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also a full time social worker, and he lives in Tucson, Arizona. See More By This Poet

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