These bloodstained hands I've washed them

[caseinpoint]

Assassins

In Arcata, California
north on the fog-and-clapboard coast
the bronze statue of McKinley
stands, empty-handed, in the village square.
His green corroded arms outstretched
it is not clear whether the former President
embraces the Pacific or weeps
that there are no more distances
a man can thrust a railroad through.
Here in Buffalo the body of his assassin lies,
humus dreaming of life after death
and the green republic. Ring-necked
pheasants peck about his grave
in the old pastoral cemetery.
Their dark eyes gleam
as light, dying,
refracts in the polluted air.

- Robert Hass