YUSUF SAADI AT THE POETRY PARTY

Yusuf Saadi writes: I had just finished reading One Thousand and One Nights, where, famously, Shahrazad must narrate a story to the king in order to entertain him all night so he doesn’t kill her. I was thinking about the interaction of language and sensuality, the kinds of sensuality on the surfaces of language and beyond language, and how the body incites language and vice versa.


Pleasuring Shahrazad

In rosewater I rinse
my final words, dip
them into your body.
Your slow, saline drip
on my tongue. You eclipse
Medinan dates soaked
in honey, saffron rice
with diced pistachios,
a single pomegranate—
surah carved in Kufic
on each ruby seed.
Camphor recites its being
inside a kerosene lamp.

Don’t plead, simply ask
for pleasure pleated
upon pleasure past
tongue-winding rinds
around words.
Damascus musk settles
on damask pillows.
Iced watermelon wine
gushes in crystal glass.
Hebron peaches blush;
sea-coast lemons
            cleave in halves.
My nails moonrake
damp thighs;
again, I dine on
webbed-wet fingers.

Lips graze lashes, kohl.
On each closed eyelid
my tongue practises
its patient whorl
before I cherish
your perfect pearl.
I gave my day
dreaming of your
myrrh’s mystique.
Now my tongue
is to caress—
not to speak.


Pluviophile, Yusuf Saadi’s first collection, was published by Nightwood Editions in April, 2020 and is available through Harbour Publishing, Nightwood Editions, independent bookstores, and at https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/pluviophile/9780889713741-item.html. "Pleasuring Shahrazad" first appeared in The Malahat Review and in Pluviophile