Brother B took off the Itamar mask
as we crossed over, epic duress lately
contracted let go, small mercy, less than
we’d been led to expect we now
clamored for, noise, no not knowing
what sound was… Noise no doubt, it
relieved us of doubt, sound again
the balm it was. “Cold Sweat” was
on the box as we came to the bridge,
epic anointment taken in stride as we
trudged on, brows wet, Jah, the
song said, would be there, not yet
where there was, Third World car-
oling light… As we’d have wanted, a
stepped emollient, upful, Netsanet’s
buxom strut what lead we needed, Bro-
ther B’s roust and arrival, Itamar’s rue,
regret… Netsanet’s Insofarian con-
sort, his and his hand hers and hers.
Fingertips dipped in ice a soothing re-
coil, each the Insofar-I he or she other-
wise was… Brother B looked back at the
bridge, Netsanet
shrugged
•
To get back to some time there
once was, a might’ve-been there
would someday be, old but new feel-
ing, steel planks fell away as they
pressed on… Lit city glistening
with rain, epic allure’s apocryphal kiss.
They were on their way there and
we as well, we rode beside them,
them beside themselves though not
the we they would’ve been, an-
other them they were, thought’s
we… Some synoptic when, syn-
optic somewhere. Brother B said, “Come
what may,” what might come came.
Upstart sense of an ending. What-
said life’s unlay… Netsanet City was
just a memory, Brother B’s blue
heaven. Netsanet’s long back a-
gleam with mist and streetlights,
long back and bum he stoked his hopes
on, odalisquelike the way it would
be were it all his… Trying to make
place that promise. Long-limbed in-
taglio, place dilated his nostrils, the press
of it incessant, shrug notwithstand-
ing, Netsanet’s empathic perfume…
Notes toward an eventual design was all
the book was, book they were already
in. An aroused hope made it so, soon-
come récit, said to have been said to have
been said to have been said, more than they
could see but
saw
____________________
Place dilated their nostrils, rain’s
aftersmell a cleansing it seemed,
aura the aroma could they name it,
Netsanecity the name they tried.
Netsanecity the meeting of look
and locale, sound was something they
saw, we saw, synaesthetes of late
but not liking it, place be itself
we begged. Earth and air each be
no other we begged, Netsanet and Bro-
ther B’s cohort, be-
witched
•
Netsanet’s Insofarian Itamar came
up next, black hold held in abeyance
brought up, bad aftertaste crossed wa-
ter left us with, pirates’ heels the
roof we lay under. “All that was
only out west,” Netsanet chided, sweet
Abyssinian rebuff… Soul music
made us forget, salt so insistent,
though, we heard its rake, its rub,
horns whose burn spread, ooze it
welled up in, Slave Coast the only
coast it seemed… We needed not
to feel that was all there was, black hold
had us. Wondrously renewed Ethio-
pians we’d be, brethren and sistren
so honey-lipped we’d sing, sing not even
meaning to, simply be, sweet, soul
music made us forget… Rapturous
rebuff we bathed in. Lovers dub rub-
a-dub, Netsanetian sweet, “All that was
only out west…” Said it again. Said
it again and again, “All that was
only out west.” Itamar, caught in the hold,
came up. Black hold heavy with salt, with
sweat
____________________
Itamar cut away so as to come
out and say it. He took heed of
the call quivering leaflike, a tree’s
way with reach no one’s if not
his… Thus he thought and set
out to see it come true. Name nam-
ing itself, tautologic Netsanet,
net no more caught up in, could
only catch itself, Brother B he’d be,
move on