Scheherazade's Saving Grace

by Cory-Ellen Nadel

Some of my stories are pleasant

tales you can tell to children

publish in hardcovers with bright pictures in primary colors,

my photo smiling on the jacket

because I am the proud author

who has been paid for the pleasure I give;

does that make me a whore, my master, my king?

Some of them are pleasant tales

you should save for adults

because they discuss sex

and dirty things that make the corners of your mouth turn up

and your unmentionables (oh, but I will) squirm on the edge of the bed

but you know you shouldn't

so you hide it on the top shelf where your mother won't see it

because she's too short and besides,

her eyesight is bad.

Some of them are not pleasant tales,

dark and cold they tell of gleaming tiger teeth and

leaves that hide monsters and men who creep

into little girls' beds because it is their

right to be wrong.

But they have happy endings,

barrels spiked with nails for the villains,

so you won't feel guilty.

Some of them are downright nasty tales

and hearing them you retch, but you know

(you always knew)

that they are the truest of all my stories

and that is why they leave you

lying awake and tearful,

staring into darksome night and remembering

my face, terrible as god

as I told them

to save myself.