Ah, you sweet toothed camel!
You debonair bachelor with Persian tassels and honking love songs,
I dreamt of you over Spain with her bulls reflected in the clouds at 30,000!

Underneath that Moorish moon I dreamt of us laughing past the mosques
and converted churches. Those bovine plebeians
envy your elegance and spit their Castilian grasses

with curses on their deli-destined tongues:
“I’ve never met Lawrenthe Olivier, never thaved Ralf Fienneth from a shoot
in the Thaudi wildernethth, wath never thued for being too cool for teenth.”

They are grimacing threats and throwing patties
like ruined falafel because, after all, what Jew, Christian, or Muslim keeps statuettes
of cows? What matador would intimidate you? Your suave, baseball-star smile coaxes

the desert to bloom. You are Fred Astaire on the white Jerusalem stone,
and that Bedouin woman, oh you devil,
that Ginger Rogers belly dances

to your soft eyes. While we are parted,
I float near salt islands and you still don’t drink. Your tongue will lap the sand
if necessary, and you’ll crane your head to me and guffaw in your toothy way.

Ah you sweet mouthed joker,
teach me your desert waltz! Show me some of your sandstorm steps,
and we will make this oasis the stage for our Nomad’s Ballet,

but not with tutus! No leotards, not for you. We’ll clothe you in gold
and a Cleopatra necklace and wig and read
not Shakespeare, but Khalil Gibran, and muse

over Hebrew peace songs and Arabic love poetry
drinking Turkish coffee and smoking date flavored tobacco from a hookah.
Ah, my burlap-skinned friend, will the world ever know the grandeur of our sands?