Rugby Team Lost in the Andes

From Ricky Ricardo Suites (Livres DC Books).

When we carved and ate Andre
 he was blue: all but his teeth, that shone 
 like whitecap Andes in the sun.

Maybe, as they later said, we were in error 
 to eat Andre. Take that first day: impromptu 
 games to keep us warm, a large-sky hope

to be found and flown out. Still, during 
 our rests from the game, we found ourselves eyeing 
 each other’s legs, wrapped with rags. We’d imagine

the golden swell of the calf, 
 curving like a downhill meadow that slants 
 to the sun. A week later, uncertainty

had turned to fear. At times the sky looked 
 close and homely, as we dined at six from familiar plates, 
 imagining other sensations, a million

miles away: the cold granulation 
 of an old friend on our tongues. He’d died 
 in the crash; within minutes, anyway, huddled

in a white-rimed blanket in the twisted 
 wreckage of the tail. This was the coldest 
 time, the days of Andean winter dwindling

to a sort of rose sputter
 that passed for light. Soon we were too cold 
 to melt snow for drink. Our faces

swelled—I couldn’t talk. I lived 
 old games in my head, tackling the gaunt 
 wishbone of a runner’s legs. In the end, of course

they found us, sitting stiff and frozen 
 like missing dinner guests. I awoke 
 in a Lima hospital, dreaming I had been eaten

by the Andes. Churchmen sat on every spare bed, 
 sent to mention obliquely those who had not returned. 
 They measured our souls, even spirited away

our shit, to examine it for angels. Were we wrong 
 to eat Marc and Andre? I can consider that now 
 on a full belly. In the ungodly chill, heat leaking

from our bodies like rain from a rotten barrel, 
 we took the flesh they had left behind, it’s as simple 
 as that. Now we’re getting hellfire

from all sides: lean Methodists, fat Jesuits, all 
 worrying their heads over our meal of blue meat. 
 The light falls on us in beams and motes; the questions

are phrased to trick us. A local holy man 
 said that if Heaven were this cold, then god 
 would open his own veins for us. The Church can’t

freeze or starve. I think if all the priests sat on a sail-
 white peak, roaring through raw blue sky, they’d tear 
 angels to pieces with their teeth, before they’d die