Drunk and violent
I am stumbling over the civil dead
And my toe is caught in their quilt of twisted limbs
There are mother necks
Daughter legs
And fat infant heads
Their skin is a flesh ceramic
That is smooth appearing
Icy cool against my feet
Ceramic soon to be sculpted by scavengers’ ravenous jaws
Into disfigured cradles for writhing spawn of bug

With force I free my toe
I have no time to idle
I am late to my brother’s home

We are in his garden
Backyard desert earth
Greens
Pinks
Woods
Rocks
Clods of clotted dirt
His hands are watering the tangled vines at their pinkish roots
Solemnly he waters with copper tears and spit
To the east I am staring
At the white wall of brick
I wonder what lives inside these spongy chunks

When he finishes watering
He turns his neck
His head
He faces me
Killing my gaze with the porous wall

The lips beneath his compound eye swing wide and fully apart  
He mournfully breathes
Words with sharpened vowels
The letters are sallow blond

My wife
She left
Away
My wife
I slit her throat
My wife
I beat her
Beat her dead
She’s buried by child oak
You smell like whiskey
Brother
You smell like musky goat
You smell like the civil dead that line the path to my wealthy home