Anabatic Jukebox

—”mu” seventy-third part—

Skin, bone, meat, blood suspect, we were again on our way somewhere else. Body suspect, gone what soul was, Ohlone games dropping     painted sticks lay behind us, Lone Coast receded, we moved on . . . Sentient wind we’d be one with again, lost     what soul once was. Lone Coast, honed       edge we hurt our feet on, again we were beginning to be gone . . . As though there’d long since been only one sun, blank sun, the one sun sun’s eventual end . . . Blank blacked in, thick indelible ink,     bird- beak stylus, again we’d soon be gone . . .

For now it was only a window I stood at, a boat-bodied harp on the box as I looked out. Mamane looked over my shoulder, “Reverend King” the next     cut came up . . . Laughter broke out, we’d all been weeping. Sob held at bay by giggle, we burst out laughing, happy       to hear time turn back . . . Trane’s bass reed made us laugh, keep crying, Dolphy’s clarinet’s high carouse . . . Ribcage theater. Tease. Tickle. Long fingers working     what was down deeper, laugh though we did although we wept. We slapped hands and were laughing, happy to be young again,       glad not knowing better, knew better

Not one death but many we’d heard and of breath now said the same, the other box the box we were stuck in, sound our one release. Bent pitch     gave rise, we insisted, to what words gave reason to be, each the eventual ghost we sometimes were, each that all would end up there . . . An     announcement, notes posted as we made our way out. One felt a friend’s gaze cross one’s right shoulder, what one looked     at also looked at from in back . . .

Husk it was one heard, its unsteadiness. Reed’s unwieldiness the boon it now was, captious, we heard it crack. Thus the birdboy’s dreamt kin     came to include us, cracked husks’ fissures whispering, droll whistle we fell back from . . . A Sahelian furtherance it was we heard, Salif Keita, another     new cut on the box. We pursed our lips, bit seeds albeit the box fell apart, the utopic box it continued to be . . . Pursed our lips, bit seeds, gap all     that was left, bit seeds broke our teeth. Air     sucked in thru the all the emptiness was, bodiless,       we all stood as one

Sprung polity’s pneumatic jukebox it was my friend and I surmised, each of them the ghost he or she would eventually be, crevice and protuberance     moot . . . What would be there . . . What would not . . . Friend whispering into one’s ear maybe not, polity we stood as     though we were . . . The window showed a shoe-box garden, green’s wild edge turned in on green itself, blade rolled into each     leaf, blood each leaf’s reglet

We stood transfixed by the box’s pull upward, a balloon or a kite it might’ve been. A new cut sang the singer’s beloved, recalled her     dressed in only a scarf and on the scarf the smell of neck sweat, late night’s agitant perfume . . . It was the glass’s way of speaking we     saw, windowpane bell jar thick . . . Worried would we get there, what we saw be what we’d     get, belled horns bellow again . . . “Reverend King” came back to us, neck sweat notwithstanding, belled horns’ bellow,     bray . . . We stood reminded we’d been there       before, caught in the walls’ rumble, saltbox dismay we swayed inside

Rumble was back, rubble, wall all window again . . . Atlantis. East St. Louis. Either. Might’ve been     both . . . It was a march we were caught up in, commencement, a march we consoled ourselves. Marched albeit we stood unmoving, stood       hoisted high we’d have said . . . Jericho we’d have said, wall falling, wall all rung even so. Hoisted, albeit we stood our legs dangled,     feet came off the floor . . . The horns played hurt it sounded like. We ascended the wall that wasn’t     there. Where were we we were gone so soon we demanded they tell     us, see-thru brink an abeyance, my friend...