Wings beating and nests with myriad mouths opening, the sky is.
THE BIRDKEEPER’S DAUGHTER REFUSES TO TRANSLATE THE SPANIARDS’ REQUEST TO BUILD AN ALTAR TO CHRIST WITHIN THE TEMPLE OF XIPE TOTEC THE FLAYED GOD When they asked I was unable. How could I explain the first noise? A remembered thing? Almost imperceptible, like seed husk unsheathing from sprouting maize? Infant wail unsheathed from its mother? My own breath? The way their ears were unable to capture gradation of silences? Their tongues’ thrashing against their teeth? Their scratches like heron toes in mud on something they called vellum? Their eyes’ inability to measure the tactile emptiness our lips and teeth leave on our loved one’s skin to mark not just word, but location in space and time? The uncountable distance from the volcano? The rationed kernels of maize between then and now? 30