Year's End

The state cracked where they left your breath No longer instrument. Along the shore The sand ripped up, and the newer blood Streaked like a vein to every monument. The empty smoke that drifted near the guns Where the stiff motor pounded in the mud Had the smell of a hundred burned-out suns. The ceiling of your sky went dark. A year ago today they cracked your bones. So rot in a closet in the ground For the bad trumpets and the capitol's Long seasonable grief. Rot for its guests, Alive, that step away from death. Yet you, A year cold, come more living to this room Than these intruders, vertical and warm.