The devotion to the martyred Christian saints on the part of the indigenous people became integrated into ancient Mesoamerican beliefs about death.
 
          -Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca
 
In the chapel of the martyrs and the saints,
a wobbly gold line winds its way across the walls,
a vine with many shoots, each leading to a story,
 
to the many deaths depicted here. We are
their audience. Characters in an ancient play,
these carved figures tell us all they know.
 
Nearby an unnamed martyr boils in an iron pot.
He raises hands in prayer. His face is lit by fire—
like all of them, present here and somehow certain
 
they are gone to God. And are we who witness this
now made new? Changed, made strange—
by whatever mystery lies within this injured,
 
muscled flesh. Here’s Saint Peter Martyr,
arm outstretched as if to bless us now—
though an axe is stuck in his skull.
 
Streams of blood blur his steady gaze.
Saint Paul kneels gracefully, an actor taking a bow,
his own severed head placed before him
 
with sad, downcast eyes. The other Peter’s upside down,
mouth wide in wild surprise, cheeks a querulous pink.
They share with us these facts of who they are:
 
Carry them with you, they seem to say.
The dead everywhere. We don’t have to believe
the story to know it’s true—
 
so we emerge, less innocent now, driving
through the valley of shadowless light, across
that bleak, expansive landscape to the spot                                         
 
where the salt cliffs overlook the odd, green pools.
My nephew wades in, wearing bright red trunks.
A man with the startled look of Peter breaks the surface
 
of the water. And a ragged branch gives a perch
to three zopilotes, poised to soar out over the valley
below us, black wings now radiant against the blue.