BEGGARS WORE SILK

in 1545, silver deposits were discovered at Potosí.  it became the biggest city in the world. for long hours for life, they pulled out over two billion ounces of that sperm-white gold, vein of egg. a living vulva, where silver spoons come out the belly by the back end.

"mujeres no entran en la mina, es mala suerte."
women do not enter into the mines, it is bad luck.

Cerro Rico's been scraped, immaculate with a system of imposed labour. tunneling bodies fallen left to rot. we spin down into the peak noun known as La Candelería. a burrow into a cooperative womb worked unregulated since the 1980's when the mines deprivatized, people takin' over. Potosino miners offer light bulbs for heads and stones for backs and a life size devil, El Tío. worshipping papier maché inside a mountain shrunk 1000 metres since inception

mining cheeks fluffed from continuous coca. we dip the wad into quinoa ash and pour on aguardiente liquor, alkali explosion at all moments. i breathed into thin toxic air yearly blessed with a bucket full of llama's blood onto the entrance of cave, hearts cut from the belly for the devil's feast.

this place flush with ghosts and dead ova from this South American twin hero West Africa. 40kg on yer back, a future in accident or silicosis death within 10 years, black lung, we 8 million strung - we dead.

miners make better money than lawyers and doctors, in this town, i hear. it's not the money though, but the method. the result. the consequence.

the logical devil lights his offering. the smoke travels into swiveling lungs of boys 8, men 37, max. - there's no coughing it out. this smoke is laden, a gift from the devil himself worshipped because God cannot see us miners, under the Earth's crust, here - dug.

and so they resume work with young black back and bone. so that we, may offer our own brothers a throne.