TAXCO Santa Prisca is hung with plastic for restoration. We sit in cool darkness, listen to stories of old promises of salvation and gratitude: “I will give you my child. Lord, I will give you my child.” As we leave the church we hear trumpets.  Women and small girls arrive, wearing black dresses, carrying white carnations.  We step aside. Behind them, pall bearers, black coffin, weary musicians. In every store, heavy silver necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings, tea services, goblets, money clips.  Wearied by so much gleaming, we merely glance at the tables. We stand together on a balcony for someone to take a picture of us smiling at the lens, behind us an indistinguishable green.  We could step backward into air, over the gloating town built on treasure.  When I find a small dish of inexpensive rings, delicate thin turnings of silver, I show them to him. “What are these for?” he asks, as though I held out a tray of fire opals and diamonds.  High in a palm tree, a black bird whistles. I stand after luncheon, looking out over the valley. We had eaten familiar foods. Onions, slivered, opened to chrysanthemums; Tomatoes, peeled, twirled into roses. He has shaped my heart into a strange tropical flower. With a few more deft motions he turns my heart into a bird in flight. Last night yellow lillies shot across my sleep like stars, hollow shells I crack open to read my future. Now when I think of him, he disappears behind a screen, scarlet as cascading bougainvilla.