My fellow-men are Aztecs, standing rapt
in multitudes, round rough-hewn altars high
Atop jagged pyramids that skyward thrust
Stone monuments to fear and Empire's pride
They watch as one, a greedy, rustling mass
As a phalanx of high-priests cross the square
Scarlet-robed translators of the divine
Dragging a naked captive by her hair
A tear upon her cheek. She know's she's doomed
Far from the mountains meadows of her birth
Beneath a bright obsidian blade to die
And never again to feel her native earth
The cobbles bruise her back, her rounded thighs
her torn scalp drips with blood, her hand hangs dead
From a club-shattered arm. The other hand
She raises still as if to shield her head
Her captors mount the steps, and she behind
Dragged like a broken doll of twisted corn
Ascends to that high peak. They lift her up,
A blood-streaked stranger, other and forlorn
She's laid upon the slab, she never moves
But stares upwards to the indifferent sky
She see a ragged condor spiral down
She sees the ragged edge of the priest's knife
A practiced hand drives it between her ribs
She twists, it twists, her soft heart is torn free
Lifted still higher in her captor's grip
For all the hungry, waiting crowd to see
He lays the pulsing tissue in the bowl
of gold, and strikes from flint a glowing flame
The corpse bleeds white behind him. The heart chars
The crowd's roar sounds, the Sun will rise again.