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       para minha mãe

      PURAQUEQUARA, 1953–TAMPA, 2014

      Saudade, or longing, is the desire to be transported from darkness into light, to be touched by that which is not of this world.

      Nick Cave, “The Secret Life of the Love Song”

      Though they die of nostalgia, they’ll never return.

      Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces

      CONTENTS

        Title Page

        Note to Reader

        The Last Time I Saw My Daughter’s Eyes, They Were on the Back of a Moth’s Wings

       MARIA JOSÉ

      1  The Last Known Sighting of the Mapinguari

      2  The Unconfirmed Miracles at Puraquequara

      3  To Survive the Revolution

      4  In Which the Chorus Describes Cafuné on the Eve of the Passion

      5  Beg, Borrow, Steal

      6  Seven Guesses

      7  A Camera Crew Films a Televovela Based on the Miracles at Puraquequara

      8  In Which the Chorus Explains What Was Stolen in 1966

      9  After the Plantation Fire

      10  How I Lost Seven Faiths

      11  In My Third Trimester I Dream My Own Death

      12  In Which the Chorus Provides a Possible Chronology

       THOMAS

      1  Better to Marry Than to Burn

      2  Atonement

      3  Incomplete Address to the Lord

      4  For the Glory

      5  In Which the Chorus Proposes Performing Nebuchadnezzar’s Dreams Instead of the Passion

      6  Peace Be with Us

      7  After Waking from a Seven-Year Dream

      8  In Which the Chorus Sees an Incomplete Vision of the Future

      9  Sanctuary

      10  Puerperal Fever

      11  Overdue Epithalamium

      12  And Again I Say Rejoice

      13  In Which the Chorus Acts Out What May Be a Love Story

       MARIA JOSÉ

      1  After the Boto’s Autopsy Reveals a Nautilus Where the Heart Should Be

      2  Sacrament

      3  In Which the Chorus Laments the Death of the Last Encantado

      4  An Incomplete Memory of the Body

      5  To Reduce Your Likelihood of Seduction by the Boto

      6  The Fate of My Seven Husbands

      7  If Marriage Is a Duel at Ten Paces

      8  Belated Epithalamium

      9  When I Go to Prison to Meet My Father

      10