“You’re not without a certain capacity for wit,” Delmore conceded. “But then, poets are often funny. Did you know that Eliot corresponded with Groucho Marx and S. J. Perelman? Most people figure that Eliot was stuffy and sombre.” He chuckled. “Nope. Eliot was funny. One of those funny anti-Semites. By the way, you spelled sombre wrong. It’s somber.”
“You’re in Canada,” I said.
He chuckled. “I’m in death. We get to keep our own way of spelling.” There followed the kind of pause that follows the first turning of the wheels of a hearse as it leaves the gravesite. “Among other things.”
“Like where?” Chelsea asked.
Delmore’s voice dropped so low that I could barely hear it. “We even get to keep our deaths.”
But I had to give my full attention to Chelsea. I peered through the windshield and
