I would ask you to dance
where the Desert blooms
I would take your hand in mine
and lead you across the sandy floors
but lose my balance, for the too bright
sunshine laughter of our start, again
and my knees would go weak
to fall me in prayer, before you
heat sands and somehow ever salty
springs from my burnt eyes this bloom
where the deserts, now are not
and I would give my freedom
all, this empty space away, to lock
in steps, and your one hand holding
ever mine, the other, this sunstroked
sense of my head against your womb
of all the worlds, to be again a bloom
with that, our once first dance, promise
I broke.
Warren Jeremy Rourke is literary agent for the Alan Paton Trust, publishing associate for Deep South, Admiral of Spaced Ellipses, and a registered psychiatric patient who once was contacted by the European Security Agency (but, he has proof of that!).