a drab puzzle for these scrambling mothers      amongst shredded remnants of plastic bags 
shallow landfill, semi desert half-light             the pieces of their sons mixed with others 
contrasting rates of decomposition        pozole hominy in a thick mud soup 	 
rain on groundwater bringing to surface             a scattered phalanx of human   hand bones 
(some of the little pieces are children’s)             up against a gated community 
the blue pools unrippled by commotion        not too far from here a woman’s young neck
blown open with a dead toad placed inside   the medium is always the message 
what’s the best to be hoped for at this stage   to be cleaned to original whiteness 
misidentified to ease someone’s grief                returned to earth in a marigold dusk 
or just deposit at the foot of this desert mistletoe          fertile     red   no pain