CONFEDERATE CEMETERY, ALTON, ILLINOIS
All of the names of the dead are Celtic
or English. Most of them died – in the prison
near the river – from typhoid rather than wounds.
Nobody set out to be cruel – farmers’
sons killing farmers’ sons. Their graveyard
above the bluffs was grassed, an obelisk built,
their names cast in bronze, bolted to limestone.
From the highway, there is no signage.
Eagles winter on the bluffs. America’s heart
is green and fecund: a confluence –
Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi.
