A Peruvian Child Sacrifice

Little boy
I wish I knew your name
I would address you by it
you deserve that dignity.

What was your death
intended to achieve?
Or were you never told?

How did you die?
Your body language speaks to me
but speaks uncertainly.
So are you huddled there for warmth,
or does some spectre,
teeth and claws,
loom over you?

You seem a creature almost alien,
its body coiled into a ball
that might be fungal
foetal
or an infant
terrified
engulfed by fire
and gone to ground
the way small children do.

I saw a Nazi lampshade once
made from human skin,
it had been seared by fire.
Your skin reminds me of it.

But little boy,
are you as brittle as you look?
A wisp of frozen smoke, perhaps?
And would a finger-touch
then make you disappear
and crumble into dust?
You could be ghost
or haunted corpse.

Fragile, yes
and parchment-like
an origami creature
scorched
unfolding in the heat

then crumpled in upon itself.

There lies the irony:
you froze to death.
They left you there,
knowing that you would.

You are a natural mummy,
freeze-dried in windy mountain air.

But little boy
you were important to them, clearly.
Do not forget,
they gave you shells
(worth more than gold)
with which to barter
or use as freebies for the gods;
they dressed you in long, flowing robes,
allowing for your future growth;
and don't forget:
you were preserved
intact
for all eternity!