“Chemical names, bird names, names of fire 
and flight and snow, baby names, paint names, 
delicate names like bones in the body, 
Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing, 
names that no one’s ever able to figure out. 
Names of spells and names of hexes, names 
cursed quietly under the breath, or called out 
loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again, 
calling you home. Nicknames and pet names 
and baroque French monikers, written in 
shorthand, written in longhand, scrawled 
illegibly in brown ink on the backs of yellowing
photographs, or embossed on envelopes lined 
with gold. Names called out across the water, 
names I called you behind your back, 
sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable, 
the names of flowers that open only once, 
shouted from balconies, shouted from rooftops, 
or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep, 
or caught in the throat like a lump of meat. 
I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending? 
Sure enough — Hello darling, welcome home. 
I’ll call you darling, hold you tight. We are 
not traitors but the lights go out. It’s dark. 
Sweetheart, is that you? There are no tears, 
no pictures of him squarely. A seaside framed 
in glass, and boats, those little boats with 
sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water, 
lights that splinter when they hit the pier. 
His voice on tape, his name on the envelope, 
the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge 
behind you, the body hardly even makes 
a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road,
every lover in the form of stars, the road 
blocked. All night I stretched my arms across 
him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing 
with all my skin and bone Please keep him safe. 
Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be 
like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed 
to pieces. Makes a cathedral, him pressing against 
me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe 
his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me 
like stars. Names of heat and names of light, 
names of collision in the dark, on the side of the 
bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen 
on jeans and hands and the backs of matchbooks 
that then get lost. Names like pain cries, names 
like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented, 
names forbidden or overused. Your name like 
a song I sing to myself, your name like a box 
where I keep my love, your name like a nest 
in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the 
sea of love — O now we’re in the sea of love! 
Your name like detergent in the washing mashine. 
Your name like two X’s like punched-in eyes, 
like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter, 
your name with two X’s to mark the spots, 
to hold the place, to keep the treasure from 
becoming ever lost. I’m saying your name 
in the grocery store, I’m saying your name on 
the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal 
covered with frost, your name like a music that’s 
been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud, 
a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails 
in wind and the slap of waves on the hull 
of a boat that’s sinking to the sound of mermaids 
singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple 
profound sadness when it sounds so far away. 
Here is a map with a your name for a capital, 
here is an arrow to prove a point: we laugh 
and it pits the world against us, we laugh, 
and we’ve got nothing left to lose, and our hearts 
turn red, and the river rises like a barn on fire.
I came to tell you, we’ll swim in the water, we’ll 
swim like something sparkling underneath
the waves. Our bodies shivering, and the sound
of our breathing, and the shore so far away. 
I’ll use my body like a ladder, climbing 
to the thing behind it, saying farewell to flesh, 
farewell to everything caught underfoot 
and flattened. Names of poisons, names of 
handguns, names of places we’ve been
together, names of people we’d be together, 
Names of endurance, names of devotion, 
street names and place names and all the names 
of our dark heaven crackling in their pan. 
It’s a bed of straw, darling. It sure as shit is.
If there was one thing I could save from the fire, 
he said, the broken arms of the sycamore, 
the eucalyptus still trying to climb out of the yard —
your breath on my neck like a music that holds 
my hands down, kisses as they burn their way 
along my spine — or rain, our bodies wet, 
clothes clinging arm to elbow, clothes clinging 
nipple to groin — I’ll be right here. I’m waiting.
Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over 
the canned music and your feet won’t stumble, 
his face getting larger, the rest blurring 
on every side. And angels, about twelve angels, 
angels knocking on your head right now, hello 
hello, a flash in the sky, would you like to 
meet him there, in Heaven? Imagine a room,
a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart, 
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated 
cities at the center of me, and here is the center 
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we 
can drink from, but I can’t go through with it. 
I just don’t want to die anymore.”

—Crush, 2005

I’ve definitely posted this poem before but I still can’t get over how every perfect word—”here is a map with your name for a capital, here is an arrow to prove a point”—”names of poisons, names of handguns, names of people we’d be together”—”makes a cathedral”—”please keep him safe”—hits, still. Siken, oh man, you write the best love letters in the world.