North American woman, gold and pink,
innocent of forces around you, where demons
of the Black Transformer surely row
to your own sacrifice, as you drive
here in a car and drink your bottled water.
You move, fresh and unscarred,
your dress flutters and brushes your thighs,
blue silk on cream, unlike a brown Maya maid
whose body was painted cobalt blue,
the color of transformation,
bound by leather and hope of return,
tossed into water that swirled over her like flowers.
Water needed the life of the girl,
and the earth needed her, because she and her people
needed the earth and water for sacred Maize.
Do you wonder if you hear of her, whether
she was borne aloft and now lives with the stars?
Their priests knew names and places and their connections
to the stars, if not the girl then the shaman who cut her throat
and offered her blood to the source.