j u a n i t a 

 

     There must have been a moment, before the club 

was brought down on your skull, in which something trivial 

occurred. Your brother missing the hem of your shawl with its pin,

a condor unwinding a thermal, or the aftertaste of chicha on your gum. 

                   All of these were broken into cases for us. 

    There was the shawl, with its constellation of pin holes, red as the day 

it was wrapped like a sunset around your shoulders. The handkerchief that had once held 

your umbilical cord. And then there was you. Minus twenty behind three panes of glass.

Huddled as any failed climber. Perhaps it was finally the cold. It must have begun to feel 

like skin. And the club — as their chants began to beat like blood from the sun — 

    did you ever start to doubt that it was real?