The poem imagines people consuming war the way they might consume a drug or a meal. In the first lines, the "we" hope to "alter our minds" by eating "the whole war," as if violence could be taken in like something that changes how we feel. The title, "Consumers," points at the double meaning: we buy and take in news, images and conflict, and here that appetite becomes literal and grotesque.
The second half darkens the picture. "Cook the dead" suggests treating human loss as ingredients, something to be prepared and made palatable. Then comes the strangest line: "our creature / aching to go home." The word "creature" could mean the self, the body, or something animal inside us that is homesick and uneasy with what it has been fed. Judging by the imagery, the speaker feels complicity and unease rather than anger. The mood is quiet, bleak and unsettled, with a small note of longing at the very end.