Dinner with the dauphine is beset
With a siege of tubs of shellfish
The shell of an oyster
on the dinner table
Swims in vinegar,
Wicking off the sea grime
Sat with the airs of a king
Longing for a stomach to pat
(The oyster that is)
The shell is a shell with fragile ridges
Of ultraviolet
The rim of its lips remember the
Rolling ocean’s tilt
The shameless gumbo
Incepts itself in the ridges
Moves in the tree bark pattern
And lends its light to the
candelabra
The mirror,
Any which mirror in
The room of mirrors,
You stand before it
And the dauphine
And you are both refracted light
Centuries between.
If you play hide and seek
In any of the many mirrors
You can see the gardens
Look at you
Looking at the gardens
Behind you
Through the mirrors of versailles
The arches
Point out that the place is not called
The hall of arches
And each mirror is the garden
Of versailles
Or gethsemane
Eden or bethlehem which
Was barely even a garden
toss each petal in the arno
Says the garden
Where the catfish snap at pigeons
And peonies press their lips to its water
Annapurna is a mirror–
Is snow capped white as Denali
(which is, itself, a petal)
Ganga and Yamuna
Who meet at midnight
And tell one another they will amble together
Like doves flanked by minarets
Sing to each other in the language of rivers
Is the song inside of a sea shell which is,
of course, a garden
