AN ARTIST’S DEATH

For Bryant

I’ve often thought of writing about you,

And how your voice once filled the little square

How there was very little I could do

Except go to the funeral home, just where

They’d patched your broken face and made it new,

And covered breaks in bone to make you fair

Again with makeup, mucilage, and glue.

I watched a line of students snake through there –

This narrow clef of unsung dirge wound through

To see you still and silent, just to stare

At what had once been you; follow the queue –

Death had destroyed your voice. It was a mere

Two days ago your notes had filled the air.

Tear as it will at beauty, death can do

Nothing to lay its guts and sinews bare –

Still, you lay satin-boxed, beyond repair.

— This poem appears in the August 25, 2014, print issue of National Review.