like a mad moment like a stone spirit locked in a quartz crystal Where is the god of the dead, the wide mouthed turtle that shivers and stabs? I lost a brother never birthed, small as a piece of exploding balloon. Nearby, a science class of liver eaters, white water bouncing from rock to rock, and I who resist sleep as I resist sex, never dream, yet I am the one who discovered the Continent of Columbus, the mad cities of Amerigo Vespucci, the bone fragmented totems of Magellan, but not the syphilis of Captain Cook and his tribe of salt eaters, their great sails gods with wings. The women of the island swan out to them laughing, their lack of inhibition a perfume. Nor did I discover the golden esophagus’s of the Conquistadors so thirsty for gold, once when they were captured, they were forced to drink it. Who among us searches for the Monograph of Truth in the jungle, in the night? ...