The Vagrant's Tomb Poem by Matthew Buchwald

It's a dark cavern where the highway weeps
Sadly yielding grey cinders to the dust,
Where the moon on the grim river creeps:
It's a seething crater, a hole in the Earth's crust.

The vagrant, spread eagled, his raw feet
And raw hands smudged by the cold black ground,
Rots: lousy, wrapped in his winding sheet,
Laid out by his things, which are piled in a mound.

Face down in sour trash, he's dead, as still
As bare bones are still buried in a dunghill.
Mankind, mourn him kindly: death was cruel.

The rats crawl over him stirring his limbs:
His pants have torn open, exposing his shins,
Bloody. A roach darts away, when he moves his skull.