Night Thoughts: Scheherazade

by Ari Berk

How many songs until he sleeps?

Feigning joy

I pour words over him,

Watch

his face dissolve in dim evening glass

his body lose its lines in

the intricate calligraphies that mark

the edges of his empire.

At the borders I will hang his name

beside the morning star and

hope to hide myself behind

the maze-path of the temple tiles,

And shadows cast by sleeping servants,

and illegitimate children of

his previous campaigns.

I think,

"Turn your eyes"—

turn them inwards once

and

I will fall away through

lamp light

carpet weave

spiral stair

tower door

or

another's broken song,

whose thread I'll catch at dawn

and knot into a rope