the mortician asked if we wanted
                                                                                                                                                to make sure the body was her

                                                                        the paiján of northern, coastal peru
                                                                        believed that cutting a person in half
                                                                        neck-to-navel was the final act a tribe
                                                                        owed the recently dead; butterflied,
                                                                        the body split open in the middle of town:
                                                                        one kidney plumper than the other,
                                                                        left leg longer than right

                                                                                                                                                inside the slight wicker basket
                                                                                                                                                she might’ve wanted to decompose in
                                                                                                                                                if she knew biodegradable caskets
                                                                                                                                                existed: her flesh would fall from bone

                                                                        the paiján believed the dead’s
                                                                        disproportion proved body
                                                                        ready to enter soil

                                                                                                                                                over the next fifty years & nothing
                                                                                                                                                would stop her body’s release

                                                                        when sun swung
                                                                        down as low as sky
                                                                        to keep the grass from burning,
                                                                        the people that loved
                                                                        the dead buried the bodies

                                                                                                                                                to become soil & live as land