my daughter’s leaky heart
that murmurs to itself
like a woeful manitou
watching the horizon
fill with ships.
They are coming ashore
upon the white expanse
of her stunned body, opening
her up, marveling, laying claim,
breaking what will not bend,
mending what they must.
They arrogate her brave
interior, cava and valves,
vessels, veins and cochineal falls.
They will bring back stories
we cannot believe:
Maskanako, Quetzalcoatl.
They are mapping her lush
interior, muttering like the wind
while she lurks elsewhere,
aboriginal and dazed and undivined,
not knowing if the man
whose hands are upon her
is the navigator Brendan,
who will find heaven
in her sacerdotal bones,
Brasail or the Paradise of Birds
his bruised eyes touch . . .
or godlike Hernan Cortez,
working hard to staunch
the voices stinking in his ears,
hoping for the twin miracles
of wealth and fame,
and up to his elbows in blood.