Julie L. Moore attends Real Community Covenant Church in Marion, Ind. Her most recent collection of poetry is Full Worm Moon.
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The Red That Colored The World
09-23-2019
Exhibition, Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Ground cochineal insects used for dye.
Darling of Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs, cochineal
conquered the ever-expanding world—
borne of female coccids boiled, dried, and ground
fine as dust, then woven with water, coaxing color
vibrant as any pink peppercorn, dye so prized,
long before Spain came, natives bred the prickly pear
on which the insects fed to bear fewer spines,
so, horsetail in hand, they could brush the parasites