From “Small Sargasso Mountains” [“The colossal Olmec heads”]

The colossal Olmec heads were carved in basalt. There is one that you always see when you think about colossal Olmec heads. There are seventeen colossal Olmec heads, but only this single colossal Olmec head comes to mind when you think about colossal Olmec heads. The one next to the path under a ceiba, a poinciana, and a rubber tree in the museum-park of La Venta, in Villahermosa, Tabasco. It’s an attempt to re-create the environment where it was found. What they couldn’t take was the hollow left in the rainforest floor. While you were observing the features on the colossal Olmec head, the one you see when you think about colossal Olmec heads, you heard your parents arguing the precise nomenclature of a stela nearby: Breasts, said mom; tits, said dad.