Michigan

It could be Michigan. The bared branches;
the succulent mist racing to sunrise.
Or Riverdale: The Southshore tracks humming;
Halloween dusk of failing furnaces -
mills giving slag and taconite to ships
and trains made up in sad and muddy yards.
It could be the strangers. The men walking:
the tired caution measured against hope.
The library unlit and left open;
The reach of trees remembered when the night
Might be the last, embers not resurrected.