Her millennia-long skeleton,

curated

in the warm

heart of the earth

and then under

the spotlight

of a museum showcase,

ascends finally in funereal fire.

The girl who dodged buffalo

and mammoth, viper

and giant sloth,

xenophobia and raping gangs

goes up finally

in a puff of smoke,

ignored, neglected and expunged:

a merry circus balloon unwittingly

setting her aflame. Luzia dies

thrice—breadless, uprooted, forlorn—

glad

finally to shuffle off her fossil

limbs; be ash, bone

turned to air,

and flee—

mummy no more—

this dank blood-

sodden bog

men call a world.