HORROR Poem: Sacrifice, by Gwendolyn Boutros

Dr. Boutros notes
how you braided yellow beads, strips of fox fur,
and dried primrose into your hair,
waxing the tips with pine resin,
trying to accentuate the steep curve of your twisted back,
evidence of a god’s touch, but
according to him, scoliosis.
On an auspicious day,
or a radiocarbon dated period,
you delivered questions
carved on turtle shells and ox bones–
the answers, the future, foretold
in the rhythmic convulsions
of your copper painted limbs,
the pooling puddles of your blood.
The carved museum plaque
only states est. D.O.D, 2 BC.
You dined on burnt griddle cake, mistletoe pollen,
and lamb since the beginning of the plague.
Your stomach contents contain traces
of rare seeds, inconsistent
with the carefully researched diets,
evidence of a ritual.
He wonders if
you crawled through the bog, sinking
into the spongy moss,
peat crusting and staining your braids.
Did you have the scent of hope?
He’ll photograph how your spine ridges
pressed patterns into the mud.
“She died a triple death.”
In archeology forums, he argues
that you prepared for the final moment,
the blade slicing through your neck, a cord corrugates,
a skull cracking blow, pain—and then
gurgling gasps, wet.
He prays that it was enough– your body for the survival of others.

Author: poetryfest

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