Lletres: Fiery Furnaces (The). Rehearsing My Choir. 4823 22nd St.

Now, as for my aunt,
Who told on me.

She was always wearing her turbans.

Sailing back to Greece on the Normandy.
Having dinner at the captain's table,
sitting on the deck with 5 men surrounding her,
with uncle Sam in the back row.
Back at home, riding up the Taygetus on a donkey named David,
with her soft leather boots dangling off to the side,
so full of pride.
So full of pride.

Profitis Elias, so high you can see us:
4823 22nd St., standing there with cashmere overcoats,
and those turbans with their Arabian silver and ostrich and papagou feather hats,
and not far down from our koumbaros Betinis.

We've got a secret between us Betinis.

In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop,
in the basement of the hat factory,
the fedoras got glued together.

But in that back basement...
(In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!)

A full compliment of grinchy Italians,
counting up on their stubby fingers, and smoking, I'm told
the least sophisticated cigars,
the local lottery and so forth -
like anybody was going to get a nit out of that nut -
though what a lucky loser is our 5000 dollar a day friend and koumbaros Betinis.
We've got a secret between us, Betinis!

In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop,
(Haberdashery was the least of it!)
in the basement of the hat factory,
the fedoras got glued together.

But in that back basement...
(In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!)

We've got a secret between us, Betinis.
5,000 dollars a day...
5,000 dollars a day...
5,000 dollars a day...
5,000 dollars a day...

In the basement of the hat factory,
the fedoras got glued together.

But in that back basement...
(In that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up!)
We've got a secret between us, Betinis.

Not that nobody knows, like nobody knows about the white doves that flew out the cake at the brother's wedding,
In your hat factory, Betinis, they count up all the buffalo nickels and silver certificates,
wrung from Lake Superior spirits.
And prize fight foolery, and sluts speaking easy in the closets on 12th St.
And in exchange you put in your pants $5,000 a day to stick under your bed for starters,
but later in the laundry, so you can feel free to chase your wife around the table,
when you feel she looked at the apricot and boysenberry boy twice