Nathaniel Mackey

— “mu” one hundred sixteenth part — Again that closer walk, legless though they’d be. Low Insofarian sun I cut my teeth on, theirs to be better to bite with, me theirs the closer we walked. They were insisting time seeds grievance, crooned it the closer I got, Zeno and Zenette moment’s nurs- es, Nunca Anuncia’s net...    Thus it was they were there again, thus they walked legless, noses thumbed at the sun. Unlay’s avatar said to’ve become caricature, sacred clown of late’s late awakening, laughed having thought it so...    So it was I saw what I saw was too much. So it was I sewed my mouth shut, they who’d have heard me gone again, what- say’s entourage. “So it was” were the words they’d gone away muttering, unlay’s non- chalance...    Everything was leaving itself, eve- ryone himself, herself, all of them, all of it, moving. It was as though they were each an- other. Outmost urge met indrawn joust, pe- yote-pod baritone tap. They were saying they’d gotten back from this or that place. Where was the honey we’d heard about I wanted to know... In the realm of whatsay it all bore consequence. They did a slack-legged shuffle, legless though they were, quick-switch imbroglio the cost of it, rum- ble in the house of who knew. It was my own most inward step, my heart itself, closer than close could be. I had a go at it but fell, my legs were in the way, no way could legless grace come again...    I thought about walking. I had to think about walk- ing, Nunca’s pelvic sway. Though what I saw I couldn’t say, it made me say things, realm in whose wood I hung in love with her hard look, walk in whose wake I lay ________________ I was whistling when my lips fell off. Lip- less was to legless in some way I couldn’t say, the closer walk words got in the way of... What it was lay on the tip of my tongue, say to unlay already in some way, unsay’s day begun. We were of more than one mind Huff had it. Sophia said the same... I wanted rele- vance, trust, I whistled even so, wind in the gaps in my teeth • A new lady named Ahdja joined our group, slight of limb, loose tomboy body, smile so broad we blushed. The Egyptian spring was up in smoke in back of us, we trudged on, far from all that, even far from Lone Coast, a former life stalked us it seemed... We took tiny steps, unsure what lay under us, unlay’s realm the sweet precinct we sought, unsure what would get us there... To say we was too much my head told me. Not so my second head said. To say we was all I wanted my third head said, sec- ond head said to’ve lost itself, third head always at odds with itself, want wanting more of itself... It was Ahdja’s dream we were in, the we I went on about, unlay’s adumbration. When would its day begin we wondered, the we I so insisted on, the we we’d eventually be, when would lay’s day be done. It was my dream of Ahdja we were in said my third head, we the one risk I took, one wish, flat rhapsodic stitch... I walked haunted by the we she made us, Nunca’s promenade be- hind us now. We’d seen Egypt in flames and we kept walking. Huff said, “I told you so,” and we kept walking, unlay’s late promenade all there was left... I dreamt a dream of moving on, I dreamt a dream of standing pat, first head and second head and third head’s agreement, a dream I let my true self slide • Unlay was no simple stand, this or that mystic hustle, this or that bodily rebuke. In the end it will have been all there was we grew to expect, no soul’s captivity some book had called Egypt, a book we no longer read... In the realm of whatsay we tramped along, there no matter spun by the swirl of it, there no matter where we were. Moment’s notice moment’s gnosis, the moment brought bad and good. Ahdja’s ka was Layla, Itamar’s Majnun, our crew caught up in the old way, the old way’s day redone... “Madness be our name,” we chimed in unison, incensed, Majnun’s dream of a just world just dreaming, Majnun’s each and all we were. So it was and so we sang, snuffed Egyptian spring an- acrustic, uncuffed auspice there’d be. Thus it was, so it went, unlay unlike what it was we expected, sanc- tified feet where voices met water, far from cause and consequence we stumped... We were relishing being together for a time, something seen in a face peering out from inside we saw was what soul was. “This is how it is,” I was telling myself, some spectral aspect it had somehow. “This is how it is,” I said, “this is how it is,” voice eaten at by the bay we stood in front of, cold ad- vent of water, cold commiseration, ythmic arrival, salt... If not what wet our hems anointment was nothing, nothing if not what tugged our feet. “Froth be what we’ll be,” we chimed, indignant, high falsetto in- sistence, deep gubgubi thrum. There was a sense there was a core to be gotten to, cloth drawn aside or gone under, frills fallen away at the water’s edge... If not it, albeit illusory it might have been, instigation was nothing ________________ The advance I wanted lay at Ahdja’s feet, scruffy thought’s nubbly dispatch. That all bow down and be at rest, unlay’s un- soon come... Chill water, careening bus, what Egypt was... World under glass wraps, flat

Came now to another crossroads. Stick people stood awaiting us, to the left, straight ahead, to the right. What was that song you sang, they asked, spoke without sound sound’s immanence, not without song but only one song, the one song summon- ing song’s eclipse... The one song sang song’s inconsequence, crooned it could not’ve been otherwise, song song’s own lament... The one song sang song’s irrelevance, we were exhausted, we looked straight ahead, left, right. The stick people’s question fa- tigued us, glyphed riddle whose decipherment they said we’d someday be, exegetes against our will... Lack, reluctance, pallor, eidolon. Crossroads cryptogram, they themselves were sing- ing, nothing not what could be seen they said, soul not sign if not eyelight, song more what could be seen than they could say, wan unwillingness they said... Slick stick people, tricky, soul a sick thing they said... Signs all said Stick City. Stick City straight ahead, to the left, to the right, signs pointed every which way... Stick sublimity sent us reeling, a we that wasn’t we against one that was. Mass, intangible we it was we were, beads thrown off in a row... We’d have given anything to get to Stick City and there we were. Whatever way we took would take us there. Stick City loomed ahead and to the left and to the right, any which way but in back of us, Stick City meant no turning back... Signs all said Stick City. We read them all out loud, “Stick City.” “Styxicity,” Itamar quipped... It wasn’t water we crossed, it wasn’t hell we were in. Stick City housed our hearts’ desires we were told, Stick City stood without end or assistance, line long since what stuck... Line was all point, point all extensity, stick’s own deictic drop... No longer point less point than point’s target, Stick City made them one and the same... So it was on to where the signs said next, Stick the one place we were yet to arrive at, Diddie Wa Diddie’s twin. A winding road it now was we were on, so curved we could see our backs. No work, no worry up ahead we heard, music’s utopic stir... Hogs lay stuck with knives and forks, chickens likewise we heard. A wall of beats for backup, Stick City way off somewhere... As quick as that we were there, Stick City. It wasn’t the way we heard it was. Everyone limped, walked with a cane, no way how we heard it was... As quick as that there we were. Stick City lay before us, lied about. Legbaland it might’ve been... Diddie Wa Diddie’s non-identical twin if twin it was, no way the way we heard it was • Stick-figure escorts ushered us in, pointed out what was what. Stick people's gait was flawless, they said, unstick people limped on sticks... A strand of horsehair lay in the road, hair from a horse's tail. Come rain it became a snake, would-be stick though Stick City said no... It was getting to be late again, the arcade's light less intense... Come night we lay under a horse, shouted voiceless trying to wake each other up and woke up, coiled hair stiffened with earwax, as if at last we were Stick City's own... Not so we saw soon enough. No home, no haven was it, noise what of it we could keep... West L.A. it might've been, Saint-Pierre it might've been wélélé no matter where we were... Stick symphony. Ictic sashay... Head bob atop watery neck, nod homage, noise, names came loose. What of it we kept we kept in name only, “Stick City” ours to hold on to. Chance it might've meant, I Ching, no place but we were long since gone... Where sign had been sound X marked it, stick bisected stick. Signal some said, noise's alternate, half where we were nowhere near where we were, were where's discontent... It was getting to be light again, noise the new day's largesse. Sound was what sign turned out from, sound itself exed out... What the song was we sang no longer what we were asked, stick inquisitors gathered, mum to the bone. Frown, furrowed brow, grimace the glyphs met us, faces lined up in a row. Line was what pressed us, point egged us on, what the song was we sang no song we sang, what the song was we sang moot... The strand-of-horsehair-become-a-snake became a rope around our necks, rope what the song we sang was. We'd have given anything to say Stick City was where we were... Breath it was we gave, rope round our necks... We were neck- less, bobbing heads, barbershop xtet, calabashes hit with sticks. Whatever we were, whatever noise there was we made ours. “This is our dispatch,” we said... Euphemistic necktie, eu- phemistic float. Horsehair tickling the tops of our throats. Wet, euphemistic scruff... As it was getting to be noon we got our necks and bodies back. A cartoon watch dog bit us, a pinscher with painted lips. We were stick people now, initiates. Stick legs only a blur, we were running, pant legs and hem- lines ripped... Cross. Chiliasm. Crisis. Stick bisected stick. More hopeless the less we needed it, less real the more shot with stick vaccine, less real the more stick we were... Stick inquisitors fell away as we went in. Stick City disappeared as we ran deeper. Too late to turn back, we were twigs, kindling, dispatch gone up in smoke... We were jíbaros, hicks, cuatro ping in back of us, howled, “Aylelolay lolelay.” We stood absorbed in what felt like advent. We stood on a plane cut thru an adverse cone. Low, rummaging burr, the sound we sought sought us, we the make-believe dead more dead than we knew... Syllabic run was more alive than we were, bass clack bugling disaster, brute sun outside the nod house door ______________ Crossroads though it was it seemed an impasse, stick as in stuck we thought. Stick as in stone's accomplice, Quag's bone- yard remit... Insofar as there was an I it fell in, a brass bell's everted lips now convergent, shush we were hollowed by. Insofar as there was an I it was as each of us insisted, as far as there was an I, stick beating stick, there was an X... Crux... Cross... Crutch... Legs' Osirian soulstrut lost, Legbaland it was and we limped on, limped in, Stick City's outskirts endless it seemed, no matter we leaned on sticks... Were there an I it stood like a stick, mum-stuff crossing itself. Insofar as there was an I it was an X taking shape, there but to be gone if not no sooner there than gone, glass house holding its own ______________ We knew we wore skeleton suits. We knew we walked holding placards. “Dead from Day One" they read, part requiem, part rebuke... What lay around us had the sound of steam. Low-motion lurk. Time-lapse cascade. Stick City city limits notwithstanding, glass intangibles allowed what was lost otherwise, gripless in the house outside the house... It slipped away and we slipped away and it slipped away, Stick City a mirage nod concocted, not to be be- lieved but we did though it receded, nod Nub's emic retreat

The vote came in early. We ignored it. No ballot-box auction for us... Nub’s uninstructed dance’s bare feet, music we took them for. At a loss with only bodies to fend with, nonsonant waves kept coming, sang without wind,        saltless, waterless,         Nub’s inverted run, Nub newly vented by horns blown elsewhere, bells full of insect husks... Nonsonant scruff held on to, sheerness... Nothingness it seemed we grabbed at, gathered, beginning to be unending it seemed. We were beginning to be lured again, ready to be hectored, huthered, move on, beginning to be uprooted again... A peppered expanse the country we crossed. Space doled out so stingily we wept, love’s numb extremity the outskirts of Nuh, name whose elision we embraced... A tale told many times over, known before it reached us, known before we knew, un- backed alley of soul we wandered into, shadowbox romance it was called... Come of late to creation’s outskirts, rub’s new muse a republic of none, a yet-to-be band the band we were... We were Andoumboulou, dreamt in- habitants of “mu,” moored but immersed, real but made up, so much farther flung than we’d have thought... They the would-be we lay on a bed the size of Outlandish. Lip attesting lip, tongue rummaging tongue, took between finger and thumb the hem of her dress, flat bead of sweat, salted cloth... A hammer hit them each on the head. Hammered heads rang and rang without end...       Called it creation, called it their clime, close where there was otherwise distance,       mute endearment,        recondite embrace... So much farther, felt even so, mouth she remembered, home. His to hear her tell it, hers were it his to say, whose book was of lengthening limbs, hers of the unquenchable kiss... A tale told over and over, long since known by heart. Lay belly to back, turned belly to belly, each the other’s dreamt accompanist, music they made in their sleep... Frayed hem the interstice, time’s moot rule. Time’s moot rule amended, echoed advance it was also called ______________ A first unfallen church of what might've been. Let run its course it would have gone otherwise, time's ulterior bequest... This they had a way of imagining, this they so wished it to be. Abstract he at the back of her mind, she at the back of his, each the other's Nub constituent, ghost of an alternative life... They were we before we were, ancestral, we who'd never not be ill at ease. A vocation for lack he'd have said, she'd have said longing, a world, were they to speak, be- tween... What wasn't, they'd have said, went away, would come back, first fanatic church, what would be • They the would-be we talking talk of election, devotees of Iemanjá. Glass- green water they were in up to their shoulders, each the other's moored recess... The way she said his name stayed with him. More made of what wasn't there than what was, whispered, came back again... Love called out from side- walk to balcony, rooftop to galaxy, mute... More made of what was there than was there, mouths vow-heavy at bed's edge, lip-touch never to be done. Never to get up again it seemed, lay shaken, endlessly commemorative advent, dreamt evanescent caress... A first unfallen church it might have been. Let run its course it would have gone otherwise, time's ulterior bequest... This they had a way of imagining, this they so wished it to be. Abstract he at the back of her mind, she at the back of his, each the other's Nub constituent, ghost of an alternative life... They were we before we were, ancestral, we who'd never not be ill at ease. A vocation for lack he'd have said, she'd have said longing, a world, were they to speak, be- tween... What wasn't, we'd have said, went away, would come back, first afflicted church, what would be... We were caught in a dream whispering names we'd forget waking up, caught waking up or in a dream of waking up, moot sound riffling our lips. Nub was a name,        was was a name,           a was a name, all moving on... Names came after us, roused us in our sleep, the ballot-box opening grinned and grinned again, gone we'd have been could we have run... It wasn't we were stuck, stood frozen, transfixed, Paralytic Dream #12... It was waking known otherwise put running out of reach, nonsonance's waterless waves held us up, more than we could sense but sensed even so, nonsonance's gaptooth slur • Day late so all the old attunements gave way, late but soon come even so... A political trek we'd have said it was albeit politics kept us at bay,         nothing wasn't politics we'd say. Wanting our want to be called otherwise, kept at bay though we were, day late but all the old stories echoed yet again, old but even so soon come... A mystic march they'd have said it was, acknowledging politics kept us at bay,        everything was mystical they'd say. Wanting our want to be so named, kept at bay as we were, what the matter was wasn't a question, no ques- tion what it was ______________ Nub no longer stood but lay and we lay with it, earth-sway cradling our backs. What the matter was rocked us, a way we had with dirt, awaiting what already might have been there... Dust... Abducted future... Dearth Lake's dry largesse... Dread Lakes' aliases, alibis, Death Lake also there... Where we were rubbed earth in our faces, a feeling we had for debris. Nub, no longer standing, filled the air, an exact powder, fell as we ran thru it, earth-sway swaddling our feet

—orphic fragment— Carnival morning they were Greeks in Brazil, Africans in Greek disguise. Said of herself she was born in a house in heaven. He said he was born in the house next door... They were in hell. In Brazil they were lovebait. To abide by hearing was what love was... To love was to hear without looking. Sound was the beloved’s mummy cloth... All to say, said the exegete, love in hell was a voice, to be spoken to from behind, not be able to turn and look... It wasn’t Greece where they were, nor was it Benin... Carnival morning in made-up hell, bodies bathed in loquat light, would-be song’s all the more would-be title, “Sound and Cerement,” voice wound in bandages raveling lapse . Up all night, slept well past noon. Awoke restless having dreamt she awoke on Lone Coast, wondering afterwards what it came to, glimpsed interstice, crevice, crack... Saw her dead mother and brother pull up in a car, her brother at the wheel not having driven while alive, newly taught by death it appeared. A fancy car, bigger than any her mother had had while alive, she too better off it appeared... A wishful read, “it appeared” notwithstanding, the exegete impossibly benign. Dreamt a dream of dream’s end, anxious, unannounced, Eronel’s nevermore namesake, Monk’s anagrammatic Lenore... That the dead return in luxury cars made us weep, pathetic its tin elegance, pitiable, sweet read misread, would-be sweet

Anuncio drifted in a well of sound, unlay’s ward, late orphan, a wry erotics had its way. He called himself Antonio now, Ahdja having joined our group...    Dunelike hip and thigh he stipulated, the desert he insisted we see. We understood there was occult stuff going on un- derneath, telling ourselves get used to it, close to the bone so close it lay inside, the closer walk we all went on about...    We were in Port of  Spain thinking about India, bored outside the Red House, shimmering side street, pan exactitude bruited elsewhere, pan’s light water, floating light. The light hung as though it were buffed, embroidered, sound’s amanuensis, griff...    There they were at the well again, the we he’d been told would be there, whatsaid en- semble the air disinterred, hit by affliction in each their own way, beset by some other where there might’ve been, beset by some other when there might’ve been, beset by some nether light... If not bodily light’s late day there was nothing, the not-all-there there’d always been come into its own. Wind affliction was all, all there was, rent, a mere liplike wrinkle at least. “Back when we were alive,” it said...    Literal sigil. Sage regret. A way of  looking. Something we saw. “Sealed lips wheeled in the air,” we translated it. The point was to look past it we saw • He wanted Ahdja’s poise, Antonio’s aplomb, namesake demur, name notwithstanding. So it was he blinked and his eyes bled, wry erotics’ haunched interstice bloodstruck, never again be- fit, Mr. In-Between... A kaiso chorale, we sang “Namaste,” a voice inside the voice inside the box, tongue in cheek, box buried somewhere east... It wasn’t singing we were there for, chant though we did sotto voce, an agonized aplomb of some sort... An Ibibio go-head we each turned into, not meaning to... Go-heads one and all we were, snide choir... To sing wasn’t why we were there... What it was was names tore loose, took wing, what world had been ours theirs now, sound itself, A- nuncio’s well’s regress... So that what we sought was more tone, mock sonance, science an a- malgam of huh, wuh, huh, knowing’s new toll, wuh huh... We were where the songs had been beckon- ing from. This was as it always was. This was always it no matter what it was. All the things it was lay nameless. Roots drew loose with no tonic, it whether or not it was... An aroused incumbency surrounded us, unlay’s fallaway terrain’s intan- gibility, Antonio’s adjunct address. We were down to the it of it it seemed... Was it the shimmer of last things we wondered, queasiness come and gone come again. There the very it so what it was our knees gave, so close we could taste it, nonce elixir, lapse, ellipse... All of which Ahdja made light of, unsure what of it fit or if any of it fit. “You can’t come on with all that new-name talk, that no-name stuff. All that evac- uation stuff,” she said, “gets old, got old,” as Antonio carried on, kept on, Anuncio to some of us, even so... All as if the quality of standing there shifted, a new cast of soul come down • Some common body to adduce it would some- day come to. We stood on the dock, white clouds, blue sky all around, spiked Antillean salt in the air. Big ships loomed as we talked... Each of us with our well of sound, a sense of quest and of brute inconsequence, Anuncio’s mys- tic pretense. “Promises, promises,” we said suck- ing our teeth, said sucking wind thru the gaps between our teeth, a taunt song serenading Mr. In- Between... We stood looking out, disconsolate, nothing if not words for recompense, what if not words none of us knew. Words more whistle than words we admonished, Anuncio going on a- bout Antonio and Ahdja, the he and she of lore they’d have been had they been able, each the other’s butterfly twin... Each the other’s but- terfly friend if not all that, paperweight, open, flown. Second-, third-, nth-hand innuendo all there was, word more whistle, mere whistle we let loose, echo degree zero, choric sough... Black wheeze, occult burr, we susurrated. “Este mundo tan extraño,” she intoned, we as well. Ahdja was meat and bones on the spirit of place he con- vinced us existed, an impromptu polity exhumed... The feeling we were futureless went away. Wuh huh went as well • An inwardly repeated tableau. We sat on the dock, reluctant witnesses it seemed, more story to the story than we could see. What we thought real got a gossamer look, soon to tear thru it seemed. Lytic remit what we’d been told was real, brute reconnoiter, non- sonant lament it seemed... There we stood, toll- ing bone in the air, no tone. Huff called it skeletone. There we sat though we stood, stood though we sat, stark Trinidadian light a new life, shoal of an earlier life... I wanted Anuncio’s ythmic pivot, Ahdja’s mystic sa- shay, Antonio’s pirate swag rolled into one but no one was asking me. No one was noticing anything, I thought, the difference Ahdja made no matter, an order of self-containment ob- tained. So I thought or would’ve said I thought had anyone asked. No one did, said or saw... An illusion of place or an allusion to it, Mu was all there was, unmoored abstract integument, im- manent commemorative lament. Something known as la-la crowded my throat, clung to the roof of my mouth. La-la meant I loved it, torn but tucked away, the versionary company of love I’d fallen in with, first unfallen fallen, unre- formed... No time soon will I be done with it I thought. La-la mentored my disarray. No way can I be done with it I thought, Ahdja and Antonio Anuncio’s boon constituency, each the other’s go-head eminence, each the other’s glancing re- lay... Late that day we sat in a small boat on the other side of the island. Scarlet ibises got their color eating shrimp Ahdja pointed out. Anuncio, not knowing what to say, said, “So my heart...” Mu was not knowing. Mu meant shutting up. Mu was me and Ahdja, Mr. and Ms. In-Between. Mu meant no filler. “Promises, promises” resounded all day... Something we saw in Ahdja’s face wanted out it seemed. She was the one we had by not having lore had it, love’s adamant outskirts, love’s dog- matic heart. I made untimeliness a foregone future, something-seen-in-a-face a new order to restore. I saw gold where there maybe wasn’t, beer cans lined on the rail we leaned against, aught if not imagined im- pact, we the presumption of one... A long sus- tention of hum it came down to, Om the Vedic nu we reminisced, Om the seed-syllabic gist and embel- lishment, Om the intuitist Mu. “Greek to me,” each of us admitted, thrum we were ambushed by, glum subterranean drone strung under it, mosquito buzz athwart it all ________________ I dreamt I died and I went into an isolation booth, a quiz box I dug my breath up in. “Please call me Antonio,” I whispered, head against the hardness of the bone beneath her breast, an anacrustic psalm, a new “Dearly Beloved.” What to say but there was nothing to, wag as much we might...Something of which we had a name if nothing else. Something for which we had the name if nothing else. Something for which we had a name if nothing else. Something of which we had the name if nothing else

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- more

—“mu” twenty-eighth part— On Antiphon Island they lowered the bar and we bent back. It wasn’t limbo we were in albeit we limbo’d. Everywhere we went we limbo’d, legs bent, shoulder blades grazing the dirt, donned andoumboulouous birth-shirts, sweat salting the silence we broke... Limbo’d so low we fell and lay looking up at the clouds, backs embraced by the ground and the ground a fallen wall we were ambushed by... Later we’d sit, sipping the fig liqueur, beckoning sleep, soon-come somnolence nowhere come as yet. Where we were, not- withstanding, wasn’t there... Where we were was the hold of a ship we were caught in. Soaked wood kept us afloat... It wasn’t limbo we were in albeit we limbo’d our way there. Where we were was what we meant by “mu.” Where we were was real, reminiscent arrest we resisted, bodies briefly had, held on to • “A Likkle Sonance” it said on the record. A trickle of blood hung overhead I heard it spurts. An introvert trumpet run, trickle of sound... A trickle of water lit by the sun I saw with an injured eye, captive music ran our legs and we danced... Knees bent, asses all but on the floor, love’s bittersweet largesse... I wanted trickle turned into flow, flood, two made one by music, bodied edge gone up into air, aura, atmosphere the garment we wore. We were on a ship’s deck dancing, drawn in a dream above hold... The world was ever after, elsewhere. Where we were they said likkle for little, lick ran with trickle, weird what we took it for... The world was ever after, elsewhere, no way where we were was there

–"mu" fifty-third part– Some new Atlantis known as Lower Ninth we took leave of next, half the turtle’s back away. Whole bodies we saw floating, not only heads... Endless letting go, endless looking else- where, endless turning out to be otherwise... Woods all around where we came to next. We’d been eating wind, we’d been drinking wind, rumoring someone looked at God eye to eye... In what seemed a dream but we saw wasn’t we saw dirt sliding. We were back and all the buildings were gone. What were cliffs to us we wondered, blown dust of Bandiagara, what the eroding precipice we saw... Ground acorns ground our teeth now. All but all gums, we were where the Alone lived, came to a clearing lit by light so bright we staggered, Nub it was we knew we were still in... The mountain of the night a mound of nothing, Toulali’s burr what balm there was. Toulali’s burr what balm, remote though it was, lifetimes behind us now... Voice laryngitic, lost and lost again, blown grit rubbed it away... Someone had said something came to mind. Someone had sung something, what its words were no one could say. Sang it bittersweet, more brusque than bitter, song’s cloth endowment stripped... Choric strain, repeatedly slipped entablature. Given... Given endlessly again... No telling when but intent on telling, no telling what. Wished we were home again • Refugees was a word we’d heard, raw talk of soul insistent, adamant, the nonsong we sang or the song we nonsang, a word we’d heard we heard was us... Wept in our sleep, again one with what would never again be there, raw talk rummaged our book, the backs of our hands written on with cornmeal, the awaited ones reluctant again... The city of sad children’s outskirts we were in, woods notwithstanding, woods nonetheless, bright light the light we saw as we were jolted, raw talk spiraling away... We were there and somewhere else no matter where we were, everywhere more than where we were... Where the Alone lived we donned abalone-shell ornaments, light’s clarity conceded, night yet to relent, Toulali smoldered on, semisang, semispoke, wrestled with his tongue it seemed... We trudged in place, barely lifted our feet, backbeat hallowing every step we took,       moved us albeit we stayed put. We were where we were, somewhere else no matter where, evacuees a word we’d heard... Stutter step, stuck shuffle, dancelike, Toulali’s croon enticed us, toyed with us, ground gone under where we stood ______________ Day of the new dead or a new day of the dead, La Catrina had we been farther south... One of us out of Mexico remembered, with us from no one could say when... Day of the new dead a new day of the dead... Wind in off the water blew us there. A beat before. Beginning's beginning. Never to be there again... Beginning beaten back, aboriginal. The Alone collecting shells on Lone Coast... They were the awaited ones' grudge not the awaited ones, the awaited ones' wish not to be there... Grudge or its ghost, grudge against going, grudge to've been anywhere at all... Gnostic hostages down on all fours, then-again's beginning, beat before beginning be- grudged • We were in the woods again circling, not far from Lone Coast,        kids again, wondered why anything was. The city of sad children a mood swing away, we strode imagining nothing, redwoods everywhere, muttered barely audibly, “Nothing is, nothing ever was,” chill so intrinsic we shook... No lament was it, not exactly insight, precocious not quite what it was. Beginning's beginning it seemed we came abreast of, beginning's beginning's ghost... We shivered, would've shed chill's incumbency had we been able, close but absconded with, all but all done, sperichill we called it, numb... Had there been a song, had someone asked who sang it,         whitecaps rushing the beach we'd have said, whitecapped anacrusis we'd have said, long since there and gone... Lower Ninth had fallen off, protobeat, protobegin- ning, blow borne before it began borne again, the one coast it all had become now crumbling, world edge, world rebuff... Circling no end it seemed, except we stopped, stood looking at the sunlight streaming in. Churchical some would've said but we resisted, felt it that way but wanted not to. Not was no guarantee... Circling no end it seemed... Same crowded same crowded same, ad infinitum, beginning's beginning's bluff ______________

—“mu” sixty-first part— Gray morning, blue morning, a feather blown between. Mashed earth incumbent, gone up from, never more naked if ever to be naked, brink what it was to be on... Where next we came stick-figure people greeted us. Abstract was abstract, also something else. Line, shape, extension each other than itself, of number we’d have said the same... Aspect arrested us, riveted we stood... Stick- figure epiphany held us in our tracks, everyone’s bones in full view... Gray morning, blue morning, an unheard string between. Bad heads’ morning reluctance, ennui’s next-day dispatch... We were chill, shiver, exegetic sweat, backed- up interpreters put upon by sluff, none of us could say what was what. Pale admonishment poised upon lack, like to unlike, pale strain recumbent, re- combinant, rude amniotic straw... Took leave, leave long since taken, awoke to what would otherwise not have been. We contested birth, we wanted to be pre- andoumboulouous, done-dead gnostics again... Sound bubbled up, it kept bubbling, sonic residue, sonic remit. A fickle sonance, fraught sonance, warning we knew nothing, stick-figure entourage otherwise issue- less, beginning to be remiss it seemed... Erst- while ecstatics’ lapsed enchantment, trance gone none could say since when... Ghost of what lifted us, ghost what lifted us, erstwhile enchantment between... Fell back, full-out extended. Pilgrim someone called me, I said no, then I said yes... Brax was on the box was what it was, toned uncertainty Stick-figure counsel all air, edge, angle, down from where we’d been and we were again where the Alone lived, adage, had it not been so abstract, it might’ve been... Long day of the abalone-shell sunset... Stood among redwoods expecting the worst... What was of note and what abjured nothing. What was all, none, one, all the same _________________ It was a ghost of a trance. I was a guest of the trance. What went on we blamed on the ghost... It was the ghost of a trance, each of us a guest of the trance. No two times were the same... When we hit a wrong not we said nothing. When we hit the right note we said so what... Tell my horse, we were told, fluke solace, horse we were mounted by... What was done was done by the ghost, gray morning, blue morning, eternity be- tween _________________ Told my horse we would gather at Nod House, down drinks at the no-host bar. Dirt was in the drinks we drank, planet sludge. Double-take told its horse whoa, told it unwhoa, back and forth and back without end... Talk spun our heads, told our horses ride on. Unresolved which to insist on, stick with. Could it whoa unwhoa's ramble unresolved... Spinning heads made us feel we sat on swivel seats... Double-take talked us in, took us in _________________ Sat again at the same table, no two times the same, twinship long since gone. Leaned back, the back legs of our chairs broke, Nod House Nub's new address... A straining look made our faces look raw, made our skin flush... Dreamt each other's dream, donned each other's costume, hosted one another, one stepped in as one stepped out

—“mu” twentieth part— The way we lay we mimed a body of water. It was this or that way with the dead and we were them. No one worried which... Millet beer made our legs go weak, loosed our tongues. “The dead,” we said, “are drowning of thirst,” gruff summons we muttered out loud in our sleep... It was a journey we were on, drawn-out scrawl we made a road of, long huthered hajj we were on. Raw strip of cloth we now rode, wishful, letterless book the ride we thumbed... Harp-headed ghost whose head we plucked incessantly. Bartered star.       Tethered run... It was a ride we knew we’d wish to return to. Every- thing was everything, nothing no less. No less newly arrived or ancestral, of late having to do with the naming of parts... Rolling hills rolled up like a rug, raw sprawl of a book within a book without a name known as Namless, not to be arrived at again... It was the Book of No Avail we were in did we dare name it, momentary kings and queens, fleet kingdom. Land fell away on all sides. Past Lag we caught ourselves, run weft at last adequate, shadowless, lit, left up Atet Street, legs tight, hill after hill after hill. Had it been a book Book of Opening the Book it would’ve been called, kept under lock and key... Hyperbolic arrest. Ra was on the box. It was after the end of the world... To lie on our backs looking into the dark was all there was worth doing, each the aroused eye one another sought, swore he or she saw we lay where love’s pharaonic torso lay deepest, wide-eyed all night without sleep... “String our heads with straw,” we said, half-skulls tied with catgut, strummed... Scratched our strummed heads, memory made us itch. Walked out weightless, air what eye was left... Someone said Rome, someone said destroy it. Atlantis, a third shouted out... Low ride among ruins notwithstanding we flew. Swam, if often seemed, underwater, oddly immersed, bodies long since bid goodbye, we lay in wait, remote muses kept us afloat. Something called pursuit had us by the nose. Wafted ether blown low, tilted floor, splintered feet. Throated bone... Rickety boat we rode... As though what we wanted was to be everywhere at once, an altered life lived on an ideal coast we’d lay washed up on, instancy and elsewhere endlessly entwined