The Caravaner's Dream

Here lies the wastehere lay the drought landsmy water has gonethere's nothing left to rubacross my chapped lips.How am I to trek acrossthe frightening wilderness alone?Without the honey I licked from my fingersit seems like decades ago?I know I will survive the attemptskeletal, vulture scarredand drag myself over the linethat parts the brown of the desertfrom the green of the oasis.But where is the camelI seem to have known since childhood.I won't go without the dancing girlwho looked up with her eyeswhich scalded in their intensitywho took the silver pieceI rubbed across her palm and smiled.I will not go, to be blinded by the sun,to die a dog's death.Find another bastard for your caravan.Love has made me lazy.Not just love, but the memory of it.Sometimes I close my eyesand can see her lying under meeyes closed and face reddeningand she speaks in a languagewhich is neither mine nor hersbut somewhere in the middleand her legs tighten around me-but up from these dreams.

Adam Tod Leverton

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