Day 474/Ceasefire Day 4

You come home
to find bodies
under the rubble.  So much
has been eroded.  So much
detroyed.  What remains
is bone.  Hair gone, eyes
gone, lips gone.  Soft belly,
warm flesh.  You see half
of a silver ring.  A heel
of a shoe.  What
was a life is reduced
to minerals.  You come home
hoping to find a remnant,
a memory.  A cup handle?
A clock?  Instead
you dig out the bodies
of those you loved,
like the long decayed trunks
of fallen trees.  Like skeletons 
of fish the tide unburies
as it recedes.