walking bodies

he walked
like dead men walk.
when fingers move,
mouths yawn open,
their red fissure
breaking bare.
sometimes, the sounds
of scrambling bodies
seemed like naked sticks
across dust and dirt.
he would walk in woods,
looking through soot:
endless, fruitless soot.
the children he saw at dawn
would ripen into carcasses by dusk.
broken words
rang from shriveled head to toe
like through hollow trees,
like bullets through cannons
and then through the
children, roars that could have
saved the moon from her flames.
white skin
would bond with bone;
hunters would use
hides of children
they found in the forest
to keep warm at night.
at times, hunters would
walk like men; but
the men only walked
like children.