Why I Want You: Arabic
Because the taste of you
has tattooed ghazals on my lips.
Because your mermaid gaze
draws Sinbad undersea,
down greygreen coral corridors
lined with drowned faces.
Because on the parchment of your cheek
tiny freckles map terra incognita.
Here be dragons, spells out Marco
as the camel bumps down the road
to Xanadu.
Because your cleft leads me
by the nose into the opened sesame;
a cavern full of silk and opals,
damask and emeralds,
spikenard and myrrh.
Because my cock is the firedrake
who covets every bauble of the treasure.
Because this infidel
has received Islam
in study of your body-arabic:
God is great! Allah Akbar!
A Moslem returning to Mecca
I pray five times a day.
Dana Pattillo, 1988
