In bed with him that night, like every night,
\nher sister at their feet, she ends her tale,
\nthen waits. Her sister quickly takes her cue,
\nand says, “I cannot sleep. Another, please?”
\nScheherazade takes one small nervous
\n breath
\nand she begins. “In faraway Peking
\nthere lived a lazy youth with his mama.
\nHis name? Aladdin. His papa was dead…”
\nShe tells them how a dark magician came,
\nclaiming to be his uncle, with a plan:
\nHe took the boy out to a lonely place,
\ngave him a ring he said would keep him safe,
\ndropped him in a cavern filled with precious stones,
\n“Bring me the lamp!” and when Aladdin won’t,
\nin darkness he’s abandoned and entombed…<\/p>\n
There now.<\/p>\n
Aladdin locked beneath the earth,
\nshe stops, her husband hooked for one
\n more night.<\/p>\n
Next day
\nshe cooks
\nshe feeds her kids
\nshe dreams…
\nKnowing Aladdin’s trapped,
\nand that her tale
\nhas bought her just one day.
\nWhat happens now?
\nShe wishes that she knew.<\/p>\n
It’s only when that evening comes around
\nand husband says, just as he always says,
\n“Tomorrow morning, I shall have your head,”
\nwhen Dunyazade, her sister, asks, “But please,
\nwhat of Aladdin?” only then, she knows…<\/p>\n
And in a cavern hung about with jewels
\nAladdin rubs his lamp. The Genie comes.
\nThe story tumbles on. Aladdin gets
\nthe princess and a palace made of pearls.
\nWatch now, the dark magician’s coming back:
\n“New lamps for old,” he’s singing in the street.
\nJust when Aladdin has lost everything,
\nshe stops.<\/p>\n
He’ll let her live another night.<\/p>\n
Her sister and her husband fall asleep.
\nShe lies awake and stares up in the dark
\nPlaying the variations in her mind:
\nthe ways to give Aladdin back his world,
\nhis palace, his princess, his everything.<\/p>\n
And then she sleeps. The tale will need an end,
\nbut now it melts to dreams inside her head.<\/p>\n
She wakes, Her sister says, “He hasn’t killed you yet.” In bed she tells them of the magic ring She does not know where any tale waits We save our lives in such unlikely ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In bed with him that night, like every night, her sister at their feet, she ends her tale, then waits. Her sister quickly takes her cue, and says, “I cannot sleep. Another, please?” Scheherazade takes one small nervous breath and she begins. “In faraway Peking there lived a lazy youth with his mama. His […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nShe feeds the kids
\nShe combs her hair
\nShe goes down to the market
\nBuys some oil
\nThe oil seller pours it out for her,
\ndecanting it
\nfrom an enormous jar.
\nShe thinks,
\nWhat if you hid a man in there?<\/em>
\nShe buys some sesame as well, that day.<\/p>\n
\n“Not yet.” Unspoken waits the phrase, “he will.”<\/p>\n
\nAladdin rubs. Slave of the Ring appears…
\nMagician dead, Aladdin saved, she stops.
\nBut once the story’s done, the teller’s dead,
\nher only hope’s to start another tale.
\nScheherazade inspects her store of words,
\nhalf-built, half-baked ideas and dreams combine
\nwith jars just big enough to hide a man,
\nand she thinks, Open Sesame<\/em>, and smiles.
\n“Now, Ali Baba was a righteous man,
\nbut he was poor…” she starts, and she’s away,
\nand so her life is safe for one more night,
\nuntil she bores him, or invention fails.<\/p>\n
\nbefore it’s told. (No more do I.)
\nBut forty thieves sounds good, so forty
\nthieves it is. She prays she’s bought
\n another clutch of days.<\/p>\n