Art / Richard Siken

:: The Magician ::

Water­col­or, 7” x 10”

From the writer

::  Account: The Magician’s Lullaby ::

You can
believe me.
You can trust
me.
You came out
of nowhere
expecting to climb
into the painted box and
have me
saw you in half
or pull you by the ears
from the darkness of a hat
but Bunny, I’d rather feed you
sandwiches
behind the lion’s cage
and read the lines of your palm
with my tongue.
I’m not
an escape artist.
I’m not any good
with rope.
So abandon
the hall of mirrors,
your carrousel of
executed horsemen
and the screamy thrill
of the Tilt-A-Whirl.
I will make these elephants
disappear.
I will darken the sky with a flock
of handkerchiefs.
I will take our bodies
and join them together and
we’ll pull ourselves through
the silver hoop.

Richard Siken is a poet, painter, and film­mak­er. His book Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, select­ed by Louise Glück, a Lamb­da Lit­er­ary Award, a Thom Gunn Award, and was a final­ist for the Nation­al Book Crit­ics Cir­cle Award. His oth­er books are War of the Fox­es (Cop­per Canyon Press, 2015) and I Do Know Some Things (forth­com­ing, Cop­per Canyon Press, 2025). Siken is a recip­i­ent of a Push­cart Prize, two Lan­nan Fel­low­ships, two Ari­zona Com­mis­sion on the Arts grants, and a fel­low­ship from the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Arts. He lives in Tuc­son, Arizona.