“Siberian ‘Lady’ Still Youthful After 2,400 Years”
after a headline from the Independent
Near the mountains of Altai, beside the Chinese border
they dug her out of ice.
What portent in the tree of knowing that adorned her?
In wild silk dyed with blood of insects?
Her bones were the event, the larches that had been her hut
a frozen chamber, her skin tattooed in signs.
On her shoulder kicking deer, leopards inked and swirling
to her fingers. Six
black horses hurried her to after-life. A warrior. A priest
she darkened in their view. Who
stuffed with fur the sockets of her seeing,
sacrificed the mutton?
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