Scheherazade
Joyce Merritt
She dreams in daylight
of fish sun-sparked red, blue and green,
lying in a man’s hands
At night, I dream of the cook with a frying pan,
the smoke, the charred meat stuck to the metal.
She married the man who owned her life
as if it were a book he could throw in the fire
when he finished the last page.
I won’t tell my stories to a man