Richard Siken

The Dislocated Room

It was night for many miles and then the real stars in the purple sky,
____like little boats rowed out too far,
begin to disappear.
_______And there, in the distance, not the promised land,
_____________________________________but a Holiday Inn,
with bougainvillea growing through the chain link by the pool.
____The door swung wide: twin beds, twin lamps, twin plastic cups
wrapped up in cellophane
_________________and he says No Henry, let's not do this.
Can you see the plot like dotted lines across the room?
____Here is the sink to wash away the blood,
here's the whiskey, the ripped-up shirt, the tile of the bathroom floor,
_________the disk of the drain
___________________punched through with holes.
Here's the boy like a sack of meat, here are the engines, the little room
____ that is not a room,
the Henry that is not a Henry, the Henry with a needle and thread,
______ hovering over the hollow boy passed out
___________________________on the universal bedspread.
_____________ Here he is again, being sewn up.
So now we have come to a great battlefield, the warmth of the fire,
____the fire still burning,
the heat escaping like a broken promise, the horizon widened
_______________________________________ like an open road.
Henry's putting his hands all over him to keep him in the room,
S_____ but the words keep rolling over the sleeper's lips:
________________________He won't kiss me. He won't kiss me.
_________________ But talking about God now, not boys.
This is the part where, this is the part where, this is the part where you
___ wake up in your clothes again,
this is the part where you're trying to stay inside the building.
__________Stay in the room for now, he says. Stay in the room
_________________________________________________for now.
This is the place, you say to yourself, this is the place where everything
____starts to begin,
the wounds reveal a thicker skin and suddenly there is no floor.
________________________________Meanwhile,
there is something underneath the building that is trying very hard
____________ to get your attention.
Let's say you're dreaming about a devil with red skin and black horns,
____ a man with almond eyes and a zipper that runs the length
of his spine.
______ A standard devil.
________________The one from the Underwood Ham label.
A man who is standing, cloven-hooved, in the middle of a Howard
____Johnson's, pointing at you with a glass of milk,
__________ saying Drink this,
________________________before I break your bones.
You pinch yourself but you're still sleeping. You pinch yourself but
____ you're still sleeping,
pinch yourself, you pinch yourself, you pinch . . .
_______________________ but the man says take one, take it, here
is the first escape: pills, valves, a new velocity, and the voices
______ are getting louder.
You can see the grill, the pots and pans, the apple pies
_________________________________ with their big sliced grins,
and you can see the shadow that the man is throwing across
____ the linoleum,
how it resembles a boat, how it crosses the tiles just so,
__________ the masts of his arms rasping against the windows.
______________________________The bell rings, the dog growls,
and then the wind picking up, and the light falling, and his mouth
____ flickering, and the dog
howling, and the window closing tight against the dirty rain.
________________ And he's pointing at you with a glass of milk
______ as if he's trying to tell you that there is
some sort of shining star now buried deep inside you and he has to
___________________________ dig it out with a knife.
Here is the hallway and here are the doors and here is the fear of the
____ other thing, the relentless
thing, your body drowning in gravity, but you are fighting it, and you
_________ want some help, and then the help arrives but
____________________________________it isn't helpful at all.
This is the meanwhile, the in-between, the waiting that happens in the
____ space between
one note and the next, the place where you confuse
__________________________ his hands with the room, the dog
____ with the man, the blood with the ripped-up sky.
___________ Henry, he's saying. Who is it that's talking?
I thought I heard the clink of ice
__________ to teeth. I thought I heard the clink of teeth to glass.
_____________________________The dog, his bowl, his sloppy grin,
the number of wounds, the exact sequence,
_____ the words now lurching in his mouth and drifting,
____________________________the words now drifting away.
He puts his hands, he's putting his hands, he puts his hands
__________________________________________ all over you
to keep you in the room, but here is the Angel of Cornflakes and Milk,
__________ and here is the Angel of Open Wounds,
____and here is the Angel of Wash You Clean,
____________________________the Angel of Taking It All Away.
We have not been given all the words necessary.
___________________ We have not been given anything at all.
____ We've been driving all night.
____________________We've been driving a long time.
We don't want to stop. We can't stop. He's standing over you.
____________________________________ His hands are open or
his hands are fists. It's night. It's noon. He's driving. It's happening
____ all over again.
________IIt isn't happening. It's love or it isn't. It isn't over.
You're in a car. You're in the weeds again. You're on a bumpy road
_______________ and there are criminals everywhere,
________________________________________ longing for danger.
Open the door and the light falls in. Open your mouth and it falls
____ right out again.
He's on top of you. He's next to you, right next to you in fact.
__________ He has the softest skin wrapped entirely around him.
____________________________________________It isn't him.
It isn't you. You're falling now. You're swimming. This is not
____ harmless. You are not
_______breathing. You're climbing out of the chlorinated pool again.
Is there an acceptable result? Do we mean something when we talk?
_______Is it enough that we are shuddering
_______________________________from the sound?
Left hand raising the fork to the mouth, feeling the meat slide down
____ your throat, thinking
___________My throat. Mine. Everything in this cone of light is mine.
The ashtray and the broken lamp, the filthy orange curtains and his
____ ruined shirt.
______________I've been in your body, baby, and it was paradise.
____ I've been in your body and it was a carnival ride.
You're inside you. He's inside you. He's between the two of you.
______________You're the residue.
________________________Gold bodies in a red red room.
You're here. You aren't here. You're the room. You're in the room.
______ You aren't in the room.
_________________Stay here for just a little longer.
They want to stop but they can't stop. They don't know what
_______________________________________ they're doing.
This is not harmless, the how to touch it, we do not want the screen
___ completely
lifted from our eyes, just lifted long enough to see the holes.
______ Tired and sore and rubbed the wrong way,
________________rubbed raw and throbbing in the light.
They want to stop but they can't stop. They cannot get the bullet out.
__________ Cut me open and the light streams out.
____Stitch me up and the light keeps streaming out between
_______________________________________________the stitches.
He cannot get the bullet out, he thinks, he can't, and then he does.
_______ A little piece of grit to build a pearl around.
Midnight June. Midnight July. They've been going at it for days now,
___ getting the bullet out.
Digging out the bullet and holding it up to the light, the light.
____________ Digging out the bullet and holding it up to the light.

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