Mortuus Finem Poem by Andy Brookes

coffin walls are beginning their compression
ever nearer wooden walls, silk lined crimson,
oaken chest or cedar, not a preference I want to contemplate

contemplation is sometimes all we have in twilight moments.
sterile hospitals where we mostly end
clinical grace given by uniformed nurses once removed

once removed and out of touch, monitored and monitors
the last sounds we hear are its slowing bleeps till flat line
shrouded and enshrouded silence elongated.

elongated flat lines on the road, yellow and white, a straight runway;
one way to the cemetery where we dump our dead
into dead spaces, cold marker stones attest, melancholy.

melancholy feelings compress like coffin walls
rolling like the news until we become the news
a small column saying dearly loved followed by a date.