Dead men drift here and there on restless tides,

washed as driftwood on a rain-decked shore.

Crows pick through the detritus, crass, craven,

and seated, the ministerial detachment surveys;

parleying with thin air, tapping stones with moccasin,

etching out the masterplan, no pretence to descend

until the paths are hollowed out, bordered, lifted

with coarse luminescence to a silent road,

in skies black above the jet engines’ scream:

‘Happy Holidays’.

A sign raised beneath, barely distinguished

beneath the decayed flesh, sand-washed bone.

A sun rises to catch the angry scrawls

in no language readable save the dead’s.