Vashti

I piss on pots scented with lillies, drink from pomegranate nectar from golden goblets bejeweled with saphires, and shit in alabaster basins. I dip my fingers in marble fountains, sleep on silk sheets strewn with roses and blankets of crimson wool.

During summer afternoons, pheasants sun themselves by the cedars, as peacocks prey among the palms.

During winter nights, your hands slither like snakes up my thighs. Your lips are drier than desert winds. Your eyes pale besides the jewels of your crown. I count the sapphires, waiting for your body to disentangle from mine.

During summer mornings, her back is arched like white marble across your linen sheets. Your lips graze in the thickets of flax that hang from her shoulders.

At breakfast, you read over dispatches from the province while I sip my coffee. My crown reflects the sun. You complain the light bothers your eyes.

"Where are you going?", you ask, when I flounce my skirts on the way to my garden. The peacocks have ornamented their flightless wings with pride, but I have only the golden bracelets that my father gave me on my wedding day.

"I am having a party", you say to me, that evening, during a dinner of stuffed pheasant and fresh figs. "I shall have one too" I reply, thinking of the blue of the peacock's feathers when you open your mouth in surprise. "You have bird hanging from your teeth", I say, and your lips bang shut like a prison gate.

I have not seen you since that evening. I heard that you have since replaced the blonde with a brunette. I considered going once, to consult you about my choice of wines (you're quite an expert on that!), but my eunuch advised me against it. "A bottle of bad white", he said, "is not worth the risk of his chopping off your head". "It depends how bad the wine is", I replied, but in the end, I felt that blood would make a poor complement to my hair's hazelnut tresses.

The women came, in gowns of crimson silk fringed with golden linen. They were bejeweled in pearls and diamonds, yet none of their necklaces matched the light of your eyes, which still paled beneath the sheen of your crown. The marble fountains were filled with wine; the cedars strewn with lanterns. The harps echoed the birds trills.

"Vashti, you look lovely!", they all said, but I had heard the words of too many lying men to trust drunken eyes. I was just starting to get bored, really, when the summons came from your court. I remembered in the days of our wedding feast, when summons would come to the ladies' court borne on the flutes of singing messengers, and you compared my eyes to opals, my hands to cinnamon - your favorite spice. I used to rub it in my hair before coming to bed. I still keep some by my nightstand, sometimes.

But these summons are all wrong. I would cut off half my father's kingdom for one night between your thighs, one more chance to crown your head with my kisses. But to you I have become another crystal vase to parade before visitors. Did you ever think that crystal vases, like people, can shatter? Did you ever ponder that you might get pricked from the shards? Or did you assume that your eunuchs would sweep me off your floor?

I do not bother to formulate the words for a polite reply. With all the queenly grace I can muster, I hand the messenger my crown. I tell my eunuchs to pack my fifty best dresses and my favorite bottles of myrrh, and I go to sit by the fountain, only to discover it is a pool of wine; bathing women splash around in the basin, their breasts dripping when they stand up to dance in the moonlight. Their voices are shrill; even the harpists have become dissonant with their inebriation.

I go back to my chamber and lie down on my bed. I inhale the jasmine-scented sheets. I try not to cry - I fail.

The king sneaks out to say goodbye. Beneath the waning moon, we hold hands for the last time. He is still slightly intoxicated; his kiss tastes of white wine. He slithers away like a snake; the king of Persia has the power to do anything, except for going unnoticed at his own party - what impotence. I can do better. I can marry a weaver, or a baker, a man who can be killed and no one would notice; the king's servants would not risk soiling their robes by stepping on the mud-filled streets for an investigation. We will toast each other from pewter mugs, and make love beneath thatched roof speckled with starlight.


Do my tears glisten brighter than your eyes that pale beneath the jewels in your golden crown?