OLMEC

The bone-crushing pain

of turning into a jaguar:

palpable in the shaman’s

cleft head carved in basalt

or jade; in his down-turned

squared-off open mouth;

lips stretched and dilated

in birthing, in a scream.

Try to imagine yourself

crossing from one world

of pain into another, the quiet

needed to summon the fury

needed to catapult you over.

For the umpteenth time,

until entranced, I trace

a talismanic cascade of curlicues

copied from an old book.

Images smuggled out

from the border, TV loops,

stream even my closed eyes.

In no other world but this,

we watch as mother is again

and again torn from child,

no glyph known for repair.