one

tonight is the one thousand
(and second) night, where I too
am Scheherazade and the tales have
run too thin, when the sagging
flowered quilt falls too thick
on your skin. tonight I will be a peach
from Paradise to be cleaved,
thighs plied apart: continents pulled
away from one another's embrace,
Pangaea coming undone again. tonight
I will feel the blooming sores of mothers
these walls whisper to me of, tonight
I too will feel limbs ladled in thick
date syrup, sluggish across mine- apricots
that will hope to bob but drown. tonight
I will learn to count by the number of times
you tread that short sad distance hovering
above me, by the strange bubbles of paint
on the ceiling that must be trapping those
voyeur stars, and you will learn to count
by the little red beads on the expectant
starched white hankerchief, rubied
pomegranate seeds. no, these you will never
have: my flesh your map, my eyes a stilled
water you can cloud with your rakı, but my
blood, these jewels, they will always remain
intact. I too will die by the sword, for poetry
has abandoned my gurgling veins, I too will
gurgle silence tonight- try me.