(for Catherine Marcangeli)
The moon is nearer than where death took you
at the end of the old year. Cold as cash
in the sky's dark pocket, its hard old face
is gold as a mask tonight. I break the ice
over the fish in my frozen pond, look up
as the ghosts of my wordless breath reach
for the stars. If I stood on the tip of my toes
and stretched, I could touch the edge of the moon.
I stooped at the lip of your open grave
to gather a fistful of earth, hard rain,
tough confetti, and tossed it down. It stuttered
like morse on the wood over your eyes, your tongue,
After the ethereal quality of the first stanza, the second begins with his grave, a contrasting concrete depiction. However, the theme of words and speech are picked up with the ambiguous “lip”. 
 The “open grave” has a  gothic  feel, like a horror movie.
Death and The Moon