Not on strike, yet anyway. Another shot from toward the end of July:


6

The Negus is king at the sources of the Nile
and as you watched the last light
glimmer through the black oaks and the steel
span glinted (through the wavering lines

of cigarette smoke spiralling idly
from the mou of a Petersburg Pawnee)
down the River Road wan bishops
and white knights looked on amazed lady

as the smoke stirred like steam
over a winter font and thick curtains
of the god of chance obscured your tracks
but today I know what you want: the massed

bells toll faintly distant across the river
their high Sophie argot a glassy lalala
in the frozen box of myrrh Lena
your magna vox my stem of reverie

is Hope anchored in a tiny throaty clef of
clay overalls an infancy cup-map of those
all-human hills so clear in Tuscany so the
Lenten font is tenderly wrapt in a cloverleaf

with the fiery lightweight tongues of the nef
of bluedom's Jonah azure aquamarine
and the beginnings of a North Star's requiem
are yoked with lastful measure in the marshy fen

where an arcing Yule of lincoln logs emblazons
a Jubilee return-ship rocked in Armenian
cupolas and a myrrh-leaf catches the singing ray
re-framed refraining reigning in your eye-of-palm

centennial and Florentine the man with you
resists and wins the trophy of the solitary vigil
his the power to oppose to the burning-glass
that blinds the pawns your gaze of steel

1.24.2000

[p.s. my maternal grandmother's maiden name was Negus]