They, the ghost cannibals, had burned everything: Semjula’s canes, Mother’s drums, Father’s blankets. The royal jewels and metals from the tips of spears they stole: adorned themselves in profane ways with them, carried them in their mouths, intended to melt pieces down to use as teeth. Gaudy displays of ignorance, no respect for the age of the items, how they had been passed down for hundreds of years from mother to son, father to daughter, each holding a piece of those who held them, blue, red, gentle, strong, shimmering once, but now stripped of their luster, debased in the grimy hands of
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