Scheherazade
By Richard Siken
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.
About the Poem
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
Richard Siken’s “Scheherazade” opens with a plea—not for survival, exactly, but for comfort in the face of despair. The speaker begs for a story, for beauty, for something to keep the darkness at bay. Much like the legendary storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights, who told tales to delay her execution, the speaker invokes narrative as a form of desperate preservation. But this is no gentle fairy tale. The world of “Scheherazade” is urgent, feral, and emotionally raw. Bodies are pulled from lakes. Horses run themselves into forgetting. Desire is dangerous, and love may be indistinguishable from destruction.
The poem speaks from a place of vulnerability familiar to many queer people: the hunger for connection even when it feels unsafe or impossible. Siken’s images are at once cinematic and deeply personal—romantic love merges with trauma, tenderness with violence. What the speaker wants isn’t just affection; he wants to be told that this brutal, beautiful life was worth it. The poem’s dreamlike structure, full of fragmented longing and looping pleas, mirrors the psychological toll of being queer in a world that does not always offer safety.“Scheherazade” is not just a love poem—it’s a survival poem. The speaker wants to be told that everything is going to be okay, even if that reassurance is a fiction. That need to believe, even briefly, in the possibility of warmth, of home, of a night spent in someone’s arms rather than alone or erased, is one of the deepest truths the poem offers. It resonates with anyone who has ever clung to love as a lifeline, even if only for one more night.
About the Poet
Richard Siken (b. 1967) is a contemporary American poet whose debut collection, Crush, won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, selected by Louise Glück. The book quickly became a cult classic, particularly among queer readers, for its fierce intensity, lyrical beauty, and unflinching depiction of obsession, grief, and desire. Siken wrote the collection in the aftermath of his partner’s death, and that grief infuses every line—making Crush not only a portrait of romantic love, but of love haunted by loss and fear.
Openly gay, Siken has spoken about the complex relationships between memory, violence, and the longing for safety that emerge in his work. His poems are often constructed as psychological collisions—dreams and flashbacks, fantasies and fears, stitched together with urgency and tenderness. In the queer literary canon, Siken’s voice stands out for its unapologetic emotional exposure and its refusal to tame desire for the sake of palatability.
As part of Pride Month, reading “Scheherazade” reminds us that queer love stories don’t have to be sanitized or simplified to be worthy. Siken’s poetry gives space to the full spectrum of experience: the danger, the ache, the beauty, and the need. His words speak directly to those who have survived by telling themselves stories—and to those still searching for someone to tell them they’re safe.
Joe
The Closet Professor 