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| 12 The Miracle Striking his head and falling, reaching and scraping the snakes on the way down. Drowning, weaving and straining, moving down the canyon, escaping to be caught, landing and igniting after many whispers, burning with what could not be rewritten, landing into place, standing upright, out of breath gone from the circle that granted him ability, stiff and tall as he illustrates the wall with his body, arms extended like a worn cross left behind when he fell, his long white hair on fire now, the smoke branding the room with the smell of his changing face, the shadow taking its place behind him as he breathes and opens his eyes, a mark on his chest where his heart fell ahead of him, the room covered in flowers, vines growing around his legs, tying him down in thorns, saved to be taught, held against the wall by those to be studied and accused, seeing him inside their thoughts when they take him apart, the prize paid to gaze upon him paid before his fall, their realization his body is trembling, the silence 13 | charging the room with the truth of arrows, knives, clusters of stars, bones embedded in animals, brains cooked in clay ovens as they pray together, rosaries decorating muscles and thighs that sweat with dirt given and soil taken away, blood cakes eaten before he moves again and forms ropes on his wrists that burn to be broken, the fire in his hair spreading to preserve him, the blossoming smell of excavation digging around him, trying to move the dirt wall so his silhouette smolders into blackness rubbed on foreheads chanting that something will happen, the words stirring his blackened face, the sting opening his eyes, scorpion memory marking the wall over his broken shoulders, belief crushing his feet, openings in the earth defined by the smoke that covers the others. ...

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