Scheherazade’s Dream, and: Metastasis
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Scheherazade’s Dream, and: Metastasis
SCHEHERAZADE’S DREAM
Did she? In daylight, after the murdererking went about his day, and shecollapsed into sleep that was not.Even in her body’s withdrawaldescending deeper beneath the palace.
But did she dream? In the scant hoursbetween djinns and castles of basalt,one-eyed men and thrice-spared merchants,did her mind dare to wander,to imagine bathing in a pool of salt,washing her skin with a cool blue stone?
Enough has been said of the body’s abilityto heal. What of our ability to survivewithout healing? To cradle the snoutof the beast to our breast and singhim to sleep. To begin the story again. [End Page 389]
METASTASIS
The mold inside the body is differentthan the mold inside the house.The mold inside the body is not contagious,spreads only within the skin’s walls.
It is a hacking cough, a wheeze.It is exhaustion at mid-day. The painton the walls is peeling.
The wallpaper is all wrong. Give methe stench of vinegar and bleach.Give me the sledgehammer,knock down this load-bearing wall.
It’s time we added a whole new wing.The body is expanding, dig outits mold, submit to this
inexorable construction. The body’s willto grow will continue. Even whenknocked down, even when buried. [End Page 390]
ISAAC GINSBERG MILLER is an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University and a teaching artist with Urban Word NYC. He has previously taught with InsideOut Literary Arts Project, Detroit Future Schools, Youth Speaks, and the James and Grace Lee Boggs School. Originally from Chico, California, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with degrees in ethnic studies and interdisciplinary studies, and received the Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Collagist, Muzzle Magazine, American Poetry Review, and English Journal.
