The desert dreams of harvest,
of holy writ & rain.

The city dreams of ruin,
of upturned cars
& vine-dressed churches.

The tiger dreams of freedom,
of shaking loose the stake & chain
& racing into shadows
large enough to hold it.

But me?

I dream of you.

There was a time we collected
dolphin's teeth
& smoked fish on atolls,
Do you remember?

We star-peeked and longed for more,
running our hands at the side of the boat,
reading the ripples,
looking for a green tinge
on the belly of clouds
because that meant land & trees.

You told me that
a sunlit lagoon makes a cloud above it
incandesce.

You called me by my true name
& kissed me like I was fireproof,
proof that we
could turn the seam between our bodies
into the equator of a world
conceived in a dream.

When at last we found land,
we swam to the shore,
tossing our heads like young horses,
shaking salt from our hair.

We turned back to look at the ocean
with its broken face & merciless boom,
reflecting in pieces
a private, blood-lit dusk.

Omar Musa