Jamestown Sonnet

           “Given these bones in a trash pit, all cut and chopped up, it’s clear that this body was dismembered for consumption.” ~anthropologist at 2013 Jamestown dig sight.

Sacrificed to the altar of human
Famine (and desperation). No longer
To lie in daffodil fields for ruin
Fastened itself atop her, much stronger,

Like the butcher who cleaved her innocence.
Blood gurgled in her cry, ribcage rattled
And shattered in branch-snapping dissonance.
Her flesh hung in the glass amongst cattle.

Her mangled remnants decrepit debris,
Sank into snaking spines of the horse bones
Intertwined like bleached vines. Soundless banshee,
Slaughtered child who met death with no gravestone.

She was found with no new discovery—
We’re civil until we become hungry.