Scheherazade
BY STEVIE EDWARDS
In this story we are old and proud
in our slack skin and one-pieces
on a rock coast of Chicago.
With our gray hair, we are elegant
animals gathering light.
You are telling me stories
about your dead
who are not us, not now—
a love taken by cancer,
who left you wintered by grief
for two summers
that are not this one.
The wind is in love with us,
keeps teasing the pages
of books that have been written
to buoy or bury us.
You are laughing loud
because it is good
for the lungs to laugh loud.
The years we spent licking
whiskey off our elbows until
we collapsed into welcome mats,
never burned us down.
We are old enough to know to be good
to our working lungs, our working
legs, our working hearts,
which have delivered us here,
to this beach, this city,
this thinning side of happiness.
