I’ll assume that fact that I read the poem twenty five consecutive times over the course of two days is a testament to the fact that I must have understood its tension-its longing for continuation-on some personal, emotional, non-mechanical level. After three more weeks and innumerable returns to Siken’s scant, pulsing work, a true grasp of the poem still had not stricken me. I am going to be frank: I did not actually understand Richard Siken’s “Scheherazade” the first time I read it, or the next time, or the twenty three times I read it over the following two days. The name of the tale was recognizable, and I felt erroneously confident in my understanding of what it was trying to reference.

Returning to Google again, I learned that the title is the name of the narrator of One Thousand and One Nights. The quotation’s credit did not include the poem’s title, but, through a quick Google search, I found the full text, unfamiliar and challenging title included. I read the lines over and over, metaphorically relinquishing my body to Siken’s light. Even out of context, the closing was elegant-sleek and succinct, concentrated and brimming. They felt like a promise, an escape, a coming home. The words themselves felt small and warm and radiant. “These, our bodies possessed by light.” I was floored.

I was introduced to Richard Siken’s “Scheherazade” this past July through a tumblr quotation highlighting the last three lines of the poem: “Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.

Richard siken poems online