you, the necronaut

A poem.

you ease shut the doors 

of the double body-bag,

a foreclosure of life. 

a thick white sheet

divides the room like an argument

with a point & purpose lost

in this months-long fever-fear. 

a rasp reminds you that you're not alone.

before you didn't need to ask: the person

trapped on the other side was wheeled out 

to a room with sun, free wind,

green plants small as grandchildren.

now they must wait as you reap.

the body-bag feels like it's grown lighter;

perhaps, you wonder again,

unbound by the weight of the soul. 

you struggle to remember their name

but you remember their face: 

they waved at you once, 

back when you could still do that, 

when visitors brought stories & sweets,

before we misplaced our time,

time lost to shrouds of alien plastic,

silicon gloves discarded in pairs, 

the horror of disinfectant 

that scours & dries

as badly as a broken promise. 

outside the nursing home, 

you lower the dead

into the rear of the truck, feather-gentle,

minding the folds of the dense bag

as if you're trimming a sail in strong wind.

you once saw purpose in this work: 

bearing so many through

a weary & distracted world,

that above all craves immortality,

so that the loving might touch these loved

one last time. 

yet after nine months, 

your blood is calloused, 

you, soul-bearer,

you, clung to the gunwales

of a water-burdened row-boat,

you, haunted by horn-squalls

from the opposite shore:

why? why?