Child Sacrifice

The Inca believed black
          the colour of purity.
As I kill my bedroom
          lights, Juanita strikes
mountain ash
          with alpaca sandals — sips chicha
morada for warmth —
          and dawn gifts coca leaf
because the mountains are
          alive for you, girl with the noble
forehead, who will live
                                                among your satiated gods.

Dressed in your mamachumpi
                     and an airy cotton veil
that steels your face
                                                   against the coming blow
to the head.
              A feather of blood
on the snowy
              vista, your violent death full
                                       of meaning — now a scarf
              swathes your skull, which stares
                                                                   east,
overlooking
             this world, its night not quite as pure
as the darkness before creation,
             stars so ripe you could pluck
them from the sky,
             stars like children floating on
a sea between countries,
             each breath a small eruption
of home. Do words
             in special order possess a power,
as in your people’s prayer,
                                                                          or a poem?
I offer word on word in search
            of form while somewhere on that sea
a boy starves for a hand
            of rice
in his dying sky. God, please let his
            taintless spirit pass through all these runes
of my imagination. God, please, let his
            nameless spirit pass through all these ruins
of my imagination.
            And the girl on tv, corpse bloated
with brine, I lay her body in this line,
                                                               adorn her temple
            in layers
of gold — blood of the sun.
            Neck in layers
of silver — blood of the moon.
            Juanita, which words
                                                           will make me a good man?