[Intro]
[Cello bows a nine-beat current while harmonium answers from below.]

[Verse 1 - Anubis, deep male baritone]
There is no river on the county map,
No bridge, no quay, no ferry slip.
Yet black water gathers behind the wall,
Where loading-bay weeds and drainpipes crawl.
The current smells of iron and myrrh,
And every drowned name starts to stir.

[Chorus - Anubis, deep male baritone]
The river behind the morgue runs slow,
Full of names no ledger knows.
No moon above and no bank below—
The river behind the morgue runs slow.
Each soul holds fast to a final word;
No crossing comes until it is heard.

[Verse 2 - Anubis, deep male baritone]
A woman waits with a hospital tag,
A boy holds tight to a grocery bag.
A migrant carries a number, no name,
An old man asks why nobody came.
They do not howl, they do not accuse;
They wait where the living failed to choose.

[Pre-Chorus - Anubis, deep male baritone]
No coins were placed beneath their tongues,
No stories passed from old to young.
Their files were closed, their rooms were cleared—
The dead remain where none are heard.

[Chorus - Anubis, deep male baritone]
The river behind the morgue runs slow,
Full of names no ledger knows.
No moon above and no bank below—
The river behind the morgue runs slow.
Each soul holds fast to a final word;
No crossing comes until it is heard.

[Instrumental Break]
[Frame drum traces uneven oar strokes as layered voices hum without words.]

[Verse 3 - Anubis, deep male baritone]
I call for the boat I used to guide;
Only a shopping cart drifts through the tide,
Its handle stamped with corporate code.
The old gate rots beneath the road;
I thought one rite had opened the way;
Instead I freed what the walls kept at bay.

[Bridge - Anubis, deep male baritone]
The cruelest death is not the blade,
Nor empty earth where bones are laid.
It is the form marked “No One Found,”
A human life filed underground.
A soul can cross through grief and blame,
But not while stripped of face and name.

[Breakdown - Anubis, deep male baritone]
The river says,
“You opened me.”
The folders answer,
“Then set us free.”
I kneel where oil stains mark the shore—
I cannot shut the current anymore.

[Final Chorus - Anubis, deep male baritone]
The river behind the morgue runs wide,
Bearing old hunger into the light.
I hear every name the building denied—
The river behind the morgue runs wide.
Until each life is spoken and heard,
I will stand in the current and carry the word.

[Outro - Anubis, deep male baritone]
Black water reaches the jackal pin.
The scale in the basement
Calls me in.
