Scheherazade

sweet teller, you spin the bones of a good tale

but it’s not for you to tell my life                                                                  
when I’m dead. Dear lady, we’d argue 

about setting, we’d scrap like Caro and Gottlieb 
over first pages. Sure, you’d go for strong plot,
I’d trust you with the characters, 

but you’d leave out 
the years I was Job, arguing with the Big Guy.
How I wanted Mary to be god instead.

The scent of my first love’s skin under his shirt. 

Summer afternoons playing hopscotch 
with my towheaded, tag-a-long sister in the driveway 
of the yellow house. 

You’d paint the wild country of my life without its secrets. 

Kathleen Goldblatt (she/her/hers) is the author of Our Ghosts Wait Patiently (Finishing Line Press.) Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, Amethyst, The Healing Muse, Psychological Perspectives and The San Antonio Review. She reflects on poetry during walks with her dog, Archie, who never tires of listening. Kathleen loves the sea and is lucky to live in Rhode Island, the Ocean State. She is a mental illness advocate and a Jungian psychoanalyst.