Your severed hands, suspended in a jar,
cohoba roots that reach through brine—
the fingers casting shadows on the floor,
a lantern ambered with formaldehyde.
Your rusted shirt behind the door—
a flag that no one came to claim,
a banner with the edges charred
and stains that grow at night, like flames
of Santa Rita on the schoolhouse wall—
beneath the ribs, the slow amoebic burn:
the jungle blooming in your bowels,
the night unthreading root to worm.
I keep the bullet in a box: a blunted
talisman, a remnant of the hunt.

It lodged, just like a broken tooth,
inside your throat— a seed that found
a channel, took an older route
and flowered there, sustained beyond
a bolted room, keeps turning over
in your sealed mouth. Beyond the window
trumpets line the Churo river,
thin processions to Rosario,
where Mary waits in effigy. I shut
your eyes, two moons still pulling
at the tide of blood. Beneath my thumb
your iris opened wide: something swimming
in that depth that would not come to shore;
one final wave still breaks against my door.