"Pornography" by Richard Siken

In honor of National Poetry Month, I am sharing exquisite poems by talented poets each Wednesday. And this prose poem by talented poet, painter, and filmmaker Richard Siken proves that, with a tender and curious mind, anything can be a mirror of ourselves and our undeniable presence, an inspiration to look through something at the deeper condition of life, the big swirling breathtaking beautiful confusing shattering eternal fact of physicality and consciousness...

Pornography
by Richard Siken

They shot him by the side of the road. The sun was tangled in his hair as he leaned against the car. He fingered his chest, just over his heart, as if touching it directly. — My car broke down. — You need oil and a belt. Take off your shirt. You could consider him compromised. There is no universe where he is not a hitchhiker asking a rancher for help, where he is not plugged in like a lamp. The doctor has to crack the ribs to get to the lungs. The plumber has to pull out the sink to get to the pipes in the walls. The pornographer has to adjust the bodies to catch the slant of the light. He moves them like furniture. In the barn, the rancher spreads a blanket and their clothes fall off considerably. They are technicians. It is a compliment. They clock and clam like eels and the night goes mink. I want to be them. I want to be like them. I want to f*** everything but I don't want to be touched. It's awful, my watching: the refusal to participate, the ogling and superiority, the approximation of a true desire. It's fake, but it isn't. It's art, but it isn't. They're pretending but it doesn't matter because they're actually doing it, exhausting themselves as the acting evaporates, peak beauty, that moment — the swan dive, the little death, a bird flying into a kitchen window, open or shut, this or nothing, it strips the bolts. The cameraman is standing very quietly. It looks like he is weeping.

https://richard-siken.com/