Sunflowers, Congo azaleas, sky full
of blood, pull the body down. That wide bad
blade, that steel. That thunk. Here is my fistful
of flesh. Take it. My bargain. I was glad
when they rose against the missionaries,
seeing all their ash was a rude gesture.
There was a girl down the road who shelled peas
with one hand and a stump for the other.
I combed her hair. She talked. The machete
was left behind. “Teach me to swing,” she said.
A gray bright rush. She was from the Congo.
She was ten. Heart, heart look away, for she
swung blood, like an amazon from the dead,
stretching out to deliver the death blow.