Song of the Andoumboulou: 55

—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