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- more