SONG OF THE ANDOUMBOULOU: 136

SONG OF THE ANDOUMBOULOU: 136

SONG OF THE ANDOUMBOULOU: 136

  A comped piano lifted the leaves in
    Low Forest, a blanket of shade pulled
up, a sheet of glass put in place, free
                                                              pros-
    pect all around I thought. I wanted my
allegoric lapse, I wanted my whatsaid
  companions. Alone looking out under
                                                                   house
      arrest, I wanted them back, less myself
  than before, unbeset . . .    An exquisite jewel
    it all was, no explanation, no equation,
                                                                       a
  time-lapse excursion it was. High John
    from High Point was on the box, the box
blown roofless, hacked wood scattered
                                                                   what
  light there was . . .    A low trombone could
    be heard asking, “What have they done to
my beautiful boy?” A tree limb cracked in
                                                                        the
      distance, the all-of-us the horns had be-
  come. All of us there to notice, all of us there
    to see, “Blue Train” our wounded anthem,
hacked wood the woods we walked . . .    I was
                                                                             im-
    agining Sophia’s dreamt-about blue truck,
      dreamt arrival, Trane’s loud announcement
  a blur, train truck, wished-for congress come
                                                                               nigh.
    There was the sun’s late equation, the moon’s
ludic blush, truck equaling train equaling train
  equaling truck, soon’s blue transport, soon
                                                                           soon
come . . .    It was the muse’s blue lips the all-of-
    us the horns had become came thru, blue
  rebuked kiss, blue-blent reconnoiter. It was
                                                                            the
     muse’s gray canopy covered us, the we I’d
  otherwise be the trees fell free of, cries loud
    and low we’d have heard had we been there,
wood equaling would equaling we . . .    I lay
                                                                         like
  Anuncio busted up contemplating the book
    of it, last leg’s no-exit announcement no way
to run. I stood like Itamar, sat like Huff. A
                                                                        sweet
    smile captured my lips like Netsanet’s, Zeno
                                                                                and
  Zenette’s re-
pair


                       •


  Zeno and Zenette’s last anything. Zeno and
    Zenette’s last kiss. I saw them come back
from afar, saw them bisect every step. Friend
                                                                             and
    familiar, affine, foe, they walked in smelling
      of salt, the reek of  Lone Coast on their hair,
  their skin, sand a kind of coat they wore . . .
                                                                             Some-
      thing I saw it seemed I dreamt I saw, some-
  thing seen exteriority reneged on, stand up wide
    awake though I did. Did I see what I saw I
                                                                             won-
      dered, the closer the coast was the less I felt
  located, water opening out onto everywhere,
    was what I saw what I saw I wanted to know . . .    
A versionary recital it seemed or so I thought,
                                                                               so
    abreast of it only the book of it remained, a
finger dipped in butterfly dust, a foot gone print-
  less, what of it I glimpsed gone out on tiptoe,
                                                                               wuh
      we’d have been whose escorts, wuh we, once
  there, drew thru the woods . . .  So it was or so
    it went, going so, soon gone, a blip no screen
accounted for, blink, as I did, all I could. The
                                                                             box
      had fallen away, sound itself an overt bed of
  scree, roughed underbody I fell and felt heir
    to, a chestnut sense were there any sense left, a
                                                                                     new
  scrub sense of my-
self





             ________________


    “Let it play on you,” Huff had said, “let
it have its way.” I wasn’t clear what “it”
  was but my ears perked up. Mu, I knew,
                                                                       had
      gone into hiding and it might have been
  Mu. I wondered was it Mu he spoke about . . . 
    In front of us the waves rolled in. They
                                                                       gave
  his eyes a glassy look . . . To see was to see
      oneself suspended, round Insofarian bliss
    at the foot of Mount Ida, Huff ’s ythmic
                                                                        what-
  say, a smiling spider’s
bite





             ________________ 


  A sort of cartoon the sun had a face and
    grew limbs in, round and round of re-
birth, death unacceptable, what I saw
                                                                was
    too much. I saw a tiptoe ghost prome-
nade, a sorcerer’s apprentice parade,
  Mr. and Mrs. P’s reminiscent lament . . .
                                                                       Some-
      thing seen in a face no straddling of legs
  lived up to. An epiphany or an epistrophe,
    no way of knowing which. Press there’d
                                                                        be
  no end of any-
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