A Vietnamese Wedding Party

a long parade of guests in pairs, longing for a chair or two, a hundred or so, and their ice-creamed children, pushing through the market sounds, the glistening fish and meat, against the dying piggy- squeals, by the river’s flowing feet wearing blacks and browns, some with prison- frowns, a tide against the wedding's beach: and in amongst the throng, some young men in bright shirts and Ray Ban shades, puzzled by the days significance, this coiling snake of women’s delight and as the anaconda enters the marital hall…(like Caesar coming into Rome), the drunks, the pensive widows, the curious maids, their still pert breasts and waists not yet destroyed by birth, dance in settled joy, into the leery mirth.