Tran-Van-Tay

NILE ROSE

                          for Tran-Van-Tay (i.m. Joseph Duemer)

The pomegranates on white linen

loom like autumn leaves.

A red that fades, grieves...

yet glows out of its midnight background

blue.  Like a chokecherry, or

some other berry, man.

Viet-American

(another long-gone war).

We were on honeymoon, in Paris.

Aphrodisiac,

that dried-up sack

of seeds (maroon, vermilion).  Osiris –

will he climb out of the grave again?

The grave of gravity

(1132 ft/sec) – for me?

One catenary arc (trompette marine)

– one thread cut from the labyrinth

of frightened Minotaur

(mother-nightmare).

One Ariadne-clue, one length

of yarn, your sheepish hermitage;

C-magnet of the knot-

king’s smoking calumet –

curled fringe of Jonah’s whale-image.

Out of the sea, the rudder swam.

Rhode Island... oaken

wisdom’s perihelion.

Rose Nile, set sail for gentle Vietnam.

10.10.18