In Late Spring

Down here, everything moves. There’s a continuous swaying din. Even when it’s quiet, the silence becomes loud. The stillness is the coiling that precedes a lion’s pounce.

I imagined a great tropical farmland, partitioned and wild, and that I was the fruit-fed sacrifice. On the final day, they burned sage and sent the chieftain’s daughter to soothe me before the blood rite. Their wagons circled like a nesting snake. My terror was a desired component of the ritual; my pleas a swansong before the knife’s flash.

I awoke bound to a stained slab, surrounded by a tower of faces beautiful and ancient…

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