Neva serpent ocarina

AT VLADIVOSTOK

One might say mathematics is a matter

of cascading functions,

with parenthetical canyons

in canyons (as at Vladivostok, or the Matter-

horn).  Rivers flow this way,

then that way, back,

forth, clattering

from Hackensack to Housatonic (May-

November).  So the game of numbers

is a mode of streambed too –

your Itasca-sprung Rio

del Espiritu (time-numbing mine of hours)

whose ceaseless surge bends past the prong

of Louie’s Gateway Arch

that budgeth not (March

to September), stills the monotone like a gong

of bronze.  Thus Mrs. Slippery, crowned,

extends her clayborne banks

beyond New Orleans... her phalanx

of ‘gators flanks her onward, azure-bound;

so the analogy of brazen serpent

lures this goldfinch dream

into Leviathan trireme

wreathing America in mist, unspent –

as when a dervish Morning Star

raveled Guillaume into her web

grappling Jonah (fledgling pleb)

into the shimmer-seine of River R.

12.27.19

Osip Mandelstam's final i.d. card (internal emigre)