Scheherazade Sleeps Through the Executions
There are so many rooms inside her
& just as many locked doors, but sometimes
when the silence snaps shut, she hears the soft
thud. Another body falling onto the white
marble floor of her sleep. All night they fall.
She doesn’t remember when the bodies started
disappearing from their lives & arriving
inside her, gagged & hooded, but she wakes
a little heavier each morning, a night’s worth
of bullet casings tangled in her hair.
The King just now easing back
into bed beside her.
